Week 53 - 3/28/16

TALOFA all (switchin it up!),

I hope yall had an amazing, spirit-filled, uplifting Easter weekend.

I sure did!! I was able to have a "reset" week. With hitting my year mark😐, zone conference🤗, and General Women's Conference😂, I did a lot of pondering and goal setting. 🤔 I also finished the Book of Mormon this morning🙃. Here are a few of my thoughts that may be worth sharing:

- yesterday we helped teach the primary kids about Missionary Work. One of the girls said that a missionary's purpose is to preach the gospel & help them be happy. She said that "it is only through the Holy Spirit that someone can choose to listen when the missionaries preach the gospel and then they can be happy." that's a brilliant 7 year old. amen.

- In Zone Conference we learned how to truly plan for a lesson. it was perfect, exactly what sister frost and I needed. while role playing, I stood as the investigator (Riley) and the Elders who were teaching me brought a member with (sister frost as sister brown). The missionaries taught and it was great, but then Sister Brown told me her experience with learning the gospel and basically bore here testimony to me. and the spirit hit me. my testimony grew of MEMBERS BEING PRESENT at the lessons and MEMBERS BEARING THEIR TESTIMONIES TO OTHERS. it made all the difference.

- late Friday night we were led to a homeless shelter to visit a potential investigator. Although I probably wouldn't have chosen that place to be at that time, we felt that we needed to be there. it ended up being a wonderful lesson with Joanne and we plan to go again for service and to start the lessons. then on the way out of her home, we started talking to Rena, a young woman from Chuuk. Her son was badly hurt and she was so touched that we cared enough to stop and ask to serve her. she was also touched by the prayer we said, and she was so excited to learn more of the gospel.

so God is SO GOOD. He helps us learn and grow and gives us all that we need to do so. He places us where we need to be, but remember what the little 7 year old said? she said we NEED THE HOLY SPIRIT TO ACCEPT TEACHINGS AND THEN TO BE HAPPY AS WE ACT ON THOSE TEACHINGS.

I challenge each of you to prepare yourselves spiritually for General Conference so that you can have the spirit with you. then you will be open to the counsel from the Lord, you will have the strength to act on it, and you WILL BE HAPPY :)

I hope this email sorta made sense haha! I love you all, and I love this gospel. I know it is true, and I am so pumped for conference this weekend!!!! :)

xoxo & pure aloha,

Sister Judkins

Week 52 - 3/21/16

Aloha All :)

something really incredible happened this week. I will try my best to type it out, but I apologize if it doesn't really make sense haha!

first off, I don't know if yall remember Ray and Anei from my first area? they were an amazing couple we were teaching. but, the week their baptism was scheduled, they had an emergency move and basically DROPPED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH. :( we had zero contact with Ray, and talked with Anei on the phone one time about two weeks after the move...

so I have been praying for this family, Ray and Anei and their daughter Rayana, for EIGHT MONTHS.

ok, so this week our appointment fell through with a  less active family. we had a prompting to tract the rest of the street. a house caught my eye across the street and a few doors down... we basically b-lined (is that a thing?) for the home. I knocked the front door and someone came out the back door asking, "Who's there?" I peeked (dad that was for you lol inside joke everyone sorry).... so I peeked around the corner and GUESS WHO WAS STANDING THERE.....

RAY!!!!

so if that's not a miracle I don't know what is. God is so so so good.

So this is a small glimpse of my week...

Monday we were able to attend an intervention thing for a wonderful family I have seriously come to love. they took it well...

Tuesday we visited the Shufford family (potential investigators). only the dad, Pi (yes as in 3.14), was home. he had a cute little Chihuahua that we offered to take on a walk... (keep in mind, we don't even know Pi, this is the first time actually talking to him lol) and HE LET US! so we came back like ten minutes later and talked about baptism with Pi. He pondered on the scripture and then looked at us and said, "My children haven't ever been baptized. I would really like my kids and myself to be baptized..."

ok :)

Wednesday we met at mcdonalds with a new investigator named Hubert (I was a fist timer meeting someone at mcd's haha it was fun!) he loved the message of the restoration and he's gonna make a great bishop some day ;)

Thursday we took a less-active ohana on a chapel tour!! after the 10:30 tour, we checked our phone. Our Ward Mission Leader had called to tell us "Sister... don't go to the chapel. cancel all your chapel tours. there's a problem with the building..." oops. haha come to find out there were bed bugs found in the building, (I don't know if i'm even allowed to tell people but hey it's out now haha) so yeah, but God is good, remember? and we don't have bed bugs :)

Friday we had an amazing zone conference :) and that's the day WE FOUND RAY!!!

Saturday we attended a beautiful baptism in Kaneohe 1st Ward, yes. God is good.

Sunday was amazing,

okay this week was amazing. I am truly grateful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary. I love my Savior. I love this gospel. I know it is true. I love being a missionary, I can't believe it has been a year since I was set apart. ... so crazy.

I love you all, I promise if you truly read search study and pray this week and focus on the Atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ, YOU WILL HAVE A GREAT EXPERIENCE THIS EASTER SUNDAY. go prepared to church and truly enjoy the spirit <3

God is good :) xoxo,

Sister Judkins

Week 51 - 3/14/16

Aloha my PEEPS <3

Okay so I said Aloha 'Oe to my lovely companion sister Gamil this week, we had such an amazing transfer together here in Kaneohe! She is a great missionary, and we saw so many miracles as we worked hard and put our trust in the Lord.

My new companion is Sister Frost from Ogden, UT. She is wonderful, and we are working really hard. She has been out for 10 months and she works super hard, she's so funny and our weirdness kinda fits perfectly haha!  We picked this transfer's theme as D&C 6:33 which says (in my own words): "FEAR NOT TO DO GOOD, MY SISTER MISSIONARIES... IF YE SOW GOOD, YE SHALL ALSO REAP GOOD FOR YOUR REWARD." So basically, we are working hard to get out and see the people. Last week the Lord just placed people in our path as we made sure to be out and about. In fact, we were able to have 48 lessons this week, which is an incredibly large amount. God is so good, guys.

As we met with Rey Rudy and Willie (2 brothers and a friend) the spirit was so strong & they all three committed to a baptism date. It's amazing what can happen when you just TRUST IN THE LORD. I learned an important thing this week: that the message of the gospel is SUPER important. Of course I knew this the whole time, but Brother Ramanalal from the bishopric explained to us the importance of the gospel and ughhh im probably not even making sense right now, but guys.... just know that it was an awesome conversation. haha :) okay moving on now....

we have a lot of great goals for this transfer, and we have an amazing ward to work with and incredible people to teach and learn with.

I am grateful for the gospel. I am grateful to be a part of this great work. I have truly seen the Lord's hand here in Hawaii. & I have seen that THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO BE HAPPY EXCEPT THROUGH THE GOSPEL. true happiness does not exist if we're not following the gospel. so if you're even a little bit unhappy, LIVE THE GOSPEL more fully. that's where your happiness lies.

I love you all. i'm grateful for our Savior. I know He lives. have a wonderful spirit-filled week!!! (it's all in your hands)

xoxo,

Sister Judkins

Pics:  sister machado <3 she's amazing.

& also one of the sisters in our ward bought us MUMUS!!! :) so fun.

saying goodbye to sister gamil :(

and aloha to sister frost :)

Week 50!! 3/7/16

Aloha All :)

Okay 17 minutes until email times up.... let's do this.

So many incredible and wonderful things have happened these past few weeks, and I cannot believe how quickly this transfer FLEW!!! I am so touched by the love I feel here. it's unlike anything else... seriously guys, the church is true. God is real. & missionary work is the bomb.

here's some highlights of these past two weeks:

. we met King Kamehameha (7th generation)... whatever that means? and he truly believes he should be king. like, he said he would like to take over the islands and get rid of this "fake" system we have here, he claims Hawaii was never ACTUALLY made a state of the US, so yes, that was interesting :)

.we did service @ pearl harbor, so fun, we ran wire through the whole boat, took hours, and we were all sweating hahahah I dunno why I thought it was so fun :P but it was!

. we went whale watching this pday and bleh no whales liked me, everyone would see them right as I turned away. like, im serious. it happened probly 9 or 10 times.

.we met with this really awesome guy, Adam, i'm really excited about him. we challenged him to read the book of Mormon because he is currently studying the bible in depth, and we could promise him that reading the bom would help him further his knowledge and faith. it's beautiful that that promise IS REAL.

. we went on SPLITS!!!! it was so fun. we took sister lo and sister Wilson out with us, they are both retired women that love the gospel. it was beautiful, and while on this split we met with a gator named Angela & she too accepted the challenge to read the bom :)

.we had a beautiful fireside which 3 of our investigators came to. the theme was Come Unto Christ. I challenge all of you to INVITE OTHERS TO COME UNTO CHRIST :) it is wonderful.

. we had a special Zone Flood (which rarely rarely happens) because we got trained on what's called the Survey Approach. It's wonderful, it works, and we met so many wonderful people because of it.

. we continued to work with our amazing investigators and crazy less-actives.

. we went to the Lai'e temple <3 gorgeous.

. we scooped poop as service hahaha horses are nasty but it was fun :)

. we helped with a garage sale for one of our less-active families .... but BLEH! they didn't come to church even after all our hard work ... guess it goes to show no matter how hard we try it is still up to the individual to do their part.

. we got TRANSFER NEWS :( sister gamil is leaving me for Makakilo (spelling? idk.) and I am getting Sister Frost from Ogden, Ut. I will miss gamil so much :( we had SO much fun with working so dang hard. it's wonderful, and we had a great six weeks.

I am so grateful for this gospel. from service, to the beautiful creations we get to enjoy, to teaching & testifying, to making life-long friends, to studying the perfect gospel.... it doesn't get any better than that. sure we still so many discouragements and life is tough sometimes, but hey GOD IS GOOD. and as long as we focus on that & trust in the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can get through anything.

I love you all so much & im so thankful for your love prayers and support.

I hope this email makes sense wakaka :)

xoxo,

Sister Judkins

Week 49 - 2/29/16

Aloha All :)

I just want you all to know I love this gospel. I love the temple. I know Christ lives. and I am so grateful to be a missionary. Happy march and share your talents this week!!! <3

xoxo,

Sister Judkins