W4: Old Lips and Stale Chips 💋🍟

I hope I hooked you guys right into this one! I'm alive and doin' pretty good :) Gphoto link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/btkDY6hNfKPBTj3Y6 * Captions included * Guess who's outta the MTC and in the LTC? Ahhh 3 weeks have gone by so quick but here I am in my 1st transfer with my amazing trainer... Sister Jensen (1st official comp). 🥁 To be honest the MTC was much harder to leave than expected I guess I grew more attached to people than I thought but here I am! It was hard saying goodbye knowing it was closing a chapter but starting a new one..! We had a 4hr drive to Opononi (named after a Dolphin btw🐬) which is my area.. along with Oauta of course.. it's like Northern top part of NZ. Lots of rural agricultural little homes with cows and sheep but I'm in a little flat with the view of the beach 🏖. No walmart here just a tiny little store for groceries it's quite quaint. On my way here though we had quite the cutlure shock as we attended a Tangi at the Marae (funeral at a meeting house) not only was it freezing (forgot what warmth felt like) but also there was an open casket and some close call greetings. Here its custom to touch nose to nose and so let's say I that's where the "old kiss" came from but yes definitley a worthwhile and humbling experience to start off my mission by mouring with those that mourn even though they had to be blessed with our accapella rendition of some hymns in butchered Maori. There were also legit the cutest kids there! So the food this week was interesting since it was a transfer week we were subsisting on the old remaining food and hence the stale chips but low key they still tasted fine. Just a friendly reminder to sign up for those calendars to feed the missionaries hehe.. 😘 Did some home to Home contacting for the first time! 😱 We also had a lot of people not answer or quickly shew us away and some where we just left a card to come to church. However there was a nice fellow and his kid who answered and weren’t NI but had potential they allowed us to share a scripture with them. Each went something like this.. "Hello! How are you doing? We’re the local sister missionaries for this area and were just stopping by to get to know the community better. Have you heard of our church before? Religious background? Anything we can do for you? etc." Exchange names and pleasentries but not much else. It also started raining on us and I backed sister Jensen like a million times since we have a car hooray. I didn’t realize it but everything here is gated off and so some are padlocked and some are open and some have the chain there.. but that and peoples “doors” being left open and because it's basically just a giant window it makes it hard for us to discretly get to people especially with this kinda area where people are just in a rural area who maybe don’t want visitors (hence the big dogs). I helped teach my first ever lesson you guys with the legend ARTHUR on baptism. My comp found him via home to home on exchanges a while back and I really liked what he said when we were teaching him. He said when we asked what it meant he'd be a "new" Arthur and I just thought that was so cute and true! We really can be new when we reNEW our covenants each week during sacrament. ;) Also he actually really wants to get dunked but since his work roster as a nurse has him working Sundays we are praying that since he requested next off that he can come to church with us!!!! Highlights: - Learned how to make "sushi" (legit just canned tuna, rice, and seaweed) 🍣 - Finally beat Sister Jensen in a game of cards - Ahhh knocked on doors and went home to home for the first time!! - SO MUCH RAIN ☔️ - I stepped in what I thought was grass but nope it was mud so good times. - Met a sweet atheist woman named Glennis who has like a million animals (turtles, fish, dogs, birds..) quite the welcome we recieved - 26 Days as a missionary so far (but really only like 5 days in the field) - Forgot to mention I did some ghost bustin' @ the MTC that vaccum is something else 👻🤣 - Also failed to mention a critical source of comic relief from our last day of class @ the MTC.. the elder I was role playing with pretended he was blind and could use sonar like an eel.. I cracked 😆 - I started watching the BOM videos I've got a LONGGG ways to go though.. Shabbat Recap a.k.a. Pday eve: - I almost had to play the piano @ church but ended up just bearing my testimony.. - Also ended up doing a duet of Love at Home with my comp and we sounded pretty good for just a spir of a moment ordeal during dinner. - Met an Islam man who wasn't quite bible bashin' but like lecturing while still asking like what we believed interesting and long convo.. he was dedicated though I'll give him that he went back in to check on his pasta and came back out to finish man it smelled good.🍝 Umm we also met a somewhat keen anti mormon but still shared a BOM message. - I realized THERE ARE SO MANY ANIMALS HERE. I thought it would just be sheep and cows but everybody has like 4 dogs and a cat I swear. - I found a mutual friend with one of the members which was cool. - The members had us for their Father's Day / Birthday Bash which was yummy and included our vocal rendition of course. The "Hungi" we had was like cooked chicken in cabbage with Pumpkin and Parsnips soooo goood. Just for fun the dinner conversation btw went something like this. I just asked one of the members so are you from here.. she said no we moved from ___ but came here to grow drugs which is usually when I would chuckle but I looked at my comp and was like jk she’s fr so ya her hubby was like a mob dude and now is like a super strong member / leadership guy but uh apprerntley he like almost died anyways not the answer I expected nonetheless interesting... - More door knocking adventures: One of the homes was kinda sus and there was a dog and a padlocked gate and it was raining so I had us slip through we found a cute kitty but no one was hoome. We found a good tactic with the dogs is to let them bark.. the owner comes out and we don’t even have to knock. We also met a nice lady doing spring cleaning so we’ll prolly come back there. We visited a ward member as well as Jazz who has 8 kids and it was downright humbling to see where they lived. No words to explain it just a shack with two little "homes" on stilt type deals and like curtains for doors and clutter everywhere idk it was quite the place and she seemed super stressed and I just like couldn’t even imagine but super cool she got baptized and married already and honestly was like even if we cleaned her house the best gift we could give her would still be the gospel because it would bring her the most joy and her house would get cluttered wheras the love of Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father never ends. Spiritual Thought: As you guys have probably figured out I've been slowly but surely savoring 2 Nephi so you guessed it... 4:30 Rejoice, O my heart, and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever; yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation. ** Just read the whole chapter it's actually amazing 👌👏😍😮 I've loved being here and enjoying the rolling hills and farmer feel. The way people live here is just so different. As I've been here I've been thinking just how much my study abroad was not councidental that I was here just a few months prior. God had a plan for me and wants be back here :) 🐑 And he's got a purpose for us all because he loves you guys so much. Just a reminder!!! Invitation this week: Although Justserve isn't really a thing here in this area we still have been looking for opps to serve people I'd invite everyone pray this week for unplanned opps to serve as well (lol and use Justserve for bonus points)!! Love you all! Sister Talbot 💖