Natalie Got Baptized!

Hello world,

Somehow I'm very short on time today, but we had a great week.  We are getting back to normal around here.  We have our car back and we are almost completely healthy.  We both have sore throats in the morning and coughs at night.  You know how that goes.  But we have very good companionship unity in our coughs.  We also seem to cough at the exact same time. :)

But this week was transfers, and guess what?  I didn't get transferred and I'm so, so happy about that.  My dearest missionary friend, Sister Pulotu from Tonga did get transferred all the way to Gisborne, but at least I still have Sister Urgel.  She is great and her English keeps improving.  I am finally doing the second half of the 12 week training which is very exciting!  Instead doing it for the third time, suddenly I am doing it for the first and I'm loving it.  There is always more wonderful stuff to learn about the gospel.  It was a crazy week because we live so close to the mission office so they always ask us to do extra, random stuff.  We had a sister who was going home stay with us for two days.  Her name was Sister Kinouchi (pronounced Key noach).  But she was from Wales and she was very proper and polite sounding and I really liked her.  We also went on exchanges with the Morrinsville sisters who I just adore!  I got to get out of Hamilton and see a little bit more of New Zealand which was exciting.  Morrinsville is a little town half an hour away, but they also cover Te Aroha which is 25 more minutes away.  So we got to see a lot of gorgeous, amazing country!  I had to keep pinching myself to see if this was real.  It was green and perfect looking.  The temperature has been just perfect lately and I love it. 

Our week ended perfectly with another baptism.  It was such a great baptism!  Our sweet Chinese investigator Natalie got baptized and it was so lovely.  She has the sweetest spirit.  She always waves to us with both hands and smiles so big and often when we were teaching her, she would say, "Wow!"  She is pretty good in English but we had to teach very simply.  She stayed as an exchange student last year with a wonderful family in Dinsdale (another part of Hamilton) and their whole extended family came to the baptism.  It was wonderful.

Ripeka also had her huge operation this week and she is now out of the hospital and doing wonderful.  We go over and talk and read the Ensign to her every day because she just has to lie there all the time and gets bored.  She is in pain, but not much worse than she was in before the operation, so hopefully she will be totally healed from it and be good as new.  I just love her and Auntie Kei so, so much!

I'm so thankful for the gospel and my unique opportunity to serve all the time!  The church is just so very true.  It's the thing that matters most.  If we trust the Lord we can always know that things will work out.  

Also, I've started Ponderizing!  I love it. :)  Last week I did John 14:27 and now I'm on to 2 Timothy 1:7.  I love it.

Heaps of love,

Sister Clarissa Johnson

P.S.  Did I tell you that everyone calls me "Sister J" these days.  It's a fun time!