4 June 2013

Hi Family and Friends,

Today marks, "Week six" of this transfer so next Monday I will learn what my new assignment will be, whether or not I have a new P-Day or even the possibilities of a new companion.  I'm pretty sure Sister Pipe and I are going to finish training together and then I'll go outbound but we shall just have to wait and see.  I cannot believe how fast this transfer has gone compared to the other six transfers because this one seems to have flown by.

Buddy!  It was so crazy that I met your friend Elder Stoddard from the Philippines on the Square (well. Robb I should say).  He was looking for a Sister from the Philippines because he had a package for her from her family and of all the sisters on the Square to stop and ask for information he came up and asked me and after seeing my badge he said, "Do you have a brother who has just gone home from the Philippines?"  Small world! 

Well, "Thank you for my package!"  And thanks for posting it to me Uncle TC and family.  I was so excited to receive my Missionary 9 month mark book and I think I've showed it to everyone in the mission.   "Haha!  Just kidding!  But really!"  It was so amazing and everyone wants a book just like mine, so look out Hina you might get some requests!  I have to put a hold on eating any of my goodies because my Fijian friend arrives back from outbound next week and I promised her that I would share them with her.  Hopefully, I don't get sent outbound for that very reason,  but if I do then I'll have to figure something out, but it will also mean that I won't be on the Square for the next General Conference which makes me a little sad. I wanted to be here for all three conferences, so, again, we will just have to wait and see.

This week has been busy, but lets be honest, "Which week isn't busy?"  But hey, we were asked by the sisters who have the assignment as, "Apartment co-ordinators" to help move some furniture and other items from a couple of the apartments.  The co-ordinator's told us that the removalists would be coming between 12:00 noon and 4:00 p.m.  We changed from our missionary attire into casual clothes ready to start moving everything at 12:00 noon and it turned out that the removalists didn't arrive until 3:20 p.m. so Sister Pipe and I, along with Sister Savelio and Sister Frietas moved as much of the furniture as we could onto the lawn and left the heavy stuff for the guys.  But we had pretty much cleared out the two apartments thinking that the removalists would be there sooner.  When we found out that they would be late we waited for them outside.  I got a nice tan and we hadn't eaten lunch so Sister Savelio and Frietas went home and made macaroni and cheese and corn beef with cabbage while Sister Pipe and I guarded the furniture and role played teaching on the Square.  It was alot of fun.  I ended up getting a little sunburnt as my skin hadn't seen a hot, sunny day for over a year so it was a great feeling.  President Seppi - who is one of the Mission President's counsellor's - came and helped us when the two men from the removal company arrived. There was an upstairs and a downstairs apartment that we'd emptied of furniture and the men had estimated it taking 8 hours to empty. Well, we got everything in the truck in an hour and then drove over to the new apartments and that took us a little over an hour as we had to send everything up the elevators.  It was hard work and we were all pretty tired at the end of it all so President Seppi said, "Lets go to dinner!"  He took us and the other 2 companionship's who were already at the new apartments out to dinner at The Lion House Restaurant.  It was so delicious and it being the end of the month we were down on food so it was heaven to us to eat at Lion House.  Thanks President Seppi!  The next day (you would be so proud of me) I woke up and ran the canyon and it was fun.  I ended up running it twice last week because the other counsellor in our Mission Presidency,  President Harman drove all the way from his house out in Park City to come and run the Canyon with us at 6:10 a.m.  Let me tell you, for a man who is over 60 he smoked all of us!  Apparently, he runs every lunch time and he works in the city so he is used to running and he was so fast.  I hope I can run that fast when I'm  60!!!

We attended Makyla's baptism on Saturday and that was so beautiful!   We had the opportunity to meet her dad and she had a lot of friends and Ward members attend so it was awesome to see all the support.  She is going to make a great missionary one day.  I know it.  Our awesome Zone leaders drove us to the baptism and it was fun.

Well, family, as I come to the end of another transfer it's always nice to look back and reflect on what has happened.  This week I have really been grateful for listening to the spirit.  After our Relief Society lesson I wanted to be more in tune with receiving personal revelation every time I prayed.  I decided to put it to the test during my personal study.  Sister Pipe and I had planned on teaching Mattie the lesson, "The Plan of Salvation."  I wanted to know if that was what she needed to hear and if not, what it was we should teach her.  So, as I studied I kept seeing a pattern happening with everything I was reading.  The topic of, "Prayer" kept surfacing, especially the importance of making our prayers more meaningful.  I wasn't too sure if this was an answer to my prayer as to what to teach Mattie so during our companionship studies I told my companion about my impressions and she agreed that we should go with my promptings.  We called Mattie and told her what we wanted to teach her about and she sounded quite relieved and happy because she said that she doesn't like to pray on her own.  She said she will pray about something specific if we ask her to, but otherwise she feels inadequate to pray and ask God for things.  To help with the lesson we used an article about Elder Cornish' experience taken from the Ensign.  He talked about biking home past the chicken store and wanting to buy a piece of chicken but he was short of a quarter.  He prayed and soon after spotted one on the side of the road.   She loved the lesson and said she found it really helpful.  I am so grateful that we have a loving Father in Heaven who answers our prayers to help us fulfill our missionary duties.  I know that to receive personal revelation one doesn't have to be a missionary.  I know I love being a missionary.  I enjoy going home tired every night and having a companion that doesn't mind working hard.  I love you all! Remember who you are!

Sister Chadderton

P.s.  So here's some fun photos!   We had our zone activity last week where we went to this beautiful park and ate ice-cream and other foods and played, "Water balloon volleyball" which ended in a massive water fight.  We also played twister and some other fun games. It was great!

Other pictures are of some of my Canadian friends - Sister Kyle & Sister Takahashi (we went to BYU-H together) and Sister Magaoay.  Lots of fun pics! Oh and theres a random picture of all these photos on the wall.  Mum,  tell Jessica Bickford I hung up the pictures in the photo album she sent me right next to my bed because I loved all the quotes!  Oh and the random one with sisters watching a movie is because we are allowed to, "borrow" a church movie and watch it on P-Day so last Tuesday night we arrived home to our room mates and other sisters watching the movie, "The Errand of Angels."  Notice the mountain of pizza boxes and diet coke!  Good times as missionaries.

There's also a picture of me and my Zone leaders - Sister WIlliams on the left and Sister Rojas on the right.  I love them so much and they both finish their missions next week!  Crazy!