Storms

Sister Kanani and her companion have been evacuated ahead of Hurricane Sandy's arrival. They are currently assigned to be with the Spanish Sisters in Providence, Rhode Island. The dear, sweet Relief Society President of the Ward where Sister Kanani has been working called tonight to assure us that she and her companion were safe and well prepared. She also told how wonderful Sister Kanani is and how she is making a difference in many people's lives. The Relief Society President also said that if she had any influence, both Sister Kanani and her companion would be able to stay right there for the rest of their missions. The members love them and they have helped many less active members through loving and teaching them.

If the power is not affected, we anticipate hearing from Sister Kanani either Thursday or Friday. Otherwise, we may not be able to correspond for quite some time.

And, the request: please pray for those people on the East Coast through these storms.

September - October

Sister Kanani has been serving in her new area in Connecticut area since the beginning of September. The Waterford area is in the Providence, Rhode Island Zone and Stake. Her companion is from Utah and they have been told by many people that they look like sisters. They have taken advantage of this as they have given presentations in District and Zone conferences on Unity.

Since being in Waterford, Sister Kanani has had the opportunity to visit the Boston Temple a couple of times. The trip is long, but well worth it. It is great seeing members of the Church from her previous area of Manchester and the Hartford Stake. The opportunity to reconnect with Sisters and Elders that she knew in the MTC and has worked with on her mission is also great.

Sister K. loves and admires her mission president, President P. “ He is an amazing man.  He is going through a lot and I love him.  He is expecting great things from my companion and me and I know that we can meet that  expectation.”

She also loves where she is serving and who she serves with. “The Elders in our District are awesome.” And, “My companion and I are super amazing together.  We both just want to work and are trying to do the best that we can.  We are also having so much fun together.  We've had great experiences with the investigators that we have but we've also been able to help each other out a lot as well.  It's been awesome.” 

A few weeks after transfers, Sister K. wrote: “Several less actives have called the Ward Relief Society President and expressed that they want to start coming back to church, yay!, and so we are going to be working with her closely and start to teach them and uplift them. Bishop also gave us the names of some less actives he would like us to work with. And we should be finding out some more from the other auxiliaries soon. The work is going to start BOOMING soon, and it's going to be epic.”

Within a few weeks: “The work with the members is coming a long great! Not only do they have the opportunity to strengthen and uplift the members, the members are actively involved in sharing the Gospel. “We actually have to juggle appointments. We had at least 3 people want to have FHE with us tonight. As it is we are participating in two. One is with a less active family and the other is with an active family and their non-member friend.” 

And soon after that: "We have started to work with another less active/part member family. Their names had been brought up in interviews with Auxiliary leaders, but we were unsure of how to contact them. Well, they were at Church on Sunday because their son was speaking. We had a wonderful conversation with them but nothing really solid. We got a call from the non-member wife on Saturday inviting us over for a family birthday party. It was slightly awkward at first, but got much better. They liked us! And there were good indications that the husband feels comfortable with us.” 

In another email: “We went home teaching with the Bishop to a less active sister. Apparently she hasn't really been open to Church talk or inviting anyone over from the Church besides the Bishop, but we got to share a thought and she told us we could drop in any time. Gotta love it! Things are going great here.”

Each area has certain opportunities for service. “I love the service we get to do here.   We help in a local food bank kitchen at St. James Church in New London. It's  a lot of fun.” St. James Church was built in the 1800’s and has amazing stained glass windows. There is also a Quilting Guild that meets at St. James Church. “Sister S. and I poked our heads in during a slow moment at the food bank and we got sucked in! It was so awesome. There are some really talented older ladies in there. Like really, really, award-winning kind of talented. They cross stitch, they quilt, they do other awesome things.  So we are going to go sit with them every other Wednesday as they work on charity stuff.  How awesome is that?!  It's basically like Relief Society only with out the fulness of the gospel.  It's cool.”

The missionaries have also helped at horse stables. “The stables is an equine therapy place that needs their fencing replaced before winter.  So we are helping them out with that. We helped them dig out rotted posts and replace them. We were so dirty. But it was so much fun digging, cutting posts and rails, ratcheting, drilling, much fun. 

Sister K. & her companion are also working with a woman that came to an LDS Chapel by mistake and has become really interested, a college student that referred himself to the missionaries through Mormon.org, and a member that is working to attend the Temple.

And General Conference: “Conference was amazing. The news that young women can now go on missions at age 19 brought tears to our eyes and excitement to our hearts. It will be awesome. Oh and it's also cool young men can now go at 18.  All of conference was amazing!” 

“The work is going forth here and it's amazing. God answers prayers and He loves each one of us.”