Hey family!!!!! :)

This was a really great week! The best thing that happened what that we had a all sisters meeting with Sister McSwain, all day long on wednesday! It was so fun and i got to see Sister Sweet, Enero and Lilo. My companions that I miss soo much... but i will send you pictures of it when they put them up on the ABM blog. They had a guest speaker and the STLs and well as Sister and President McSwain gave trainings, and we had lunch and dinner that the assistants served to us. And they had us all introduce ourselves, and it was so funny... our region went up and i introduced myself, and i mentioned that i like to play sports and exercise, and then Sister Costa went, and the first thing she said was, "i testify that that is true! She kills me every morning when we exercise!" hahaha so everyone thought that was pretty funny. :)

But we were able to do lots of service this week, mowing lawns, washing cars, folding laundry, vaccuuming and mopping, sewing pillows.. lots of service! which i love!

But i am so sorry for sending short emials for 2 weeks in a row.. i will repent and try to send you a longer one next week with more details...

Just know that life is good, training is a great learning experience and Sister Costa is heaps of fun!

Love you all!!!

love, Sister Alldredge

                                                                   1. Chae's baptism

                                          2. i may be smiling, but im not enjoying this at all.

        

              3. during our fun family home evening we are doing as a flat on friday nights :)

      

                                                              4. my dear sister sweet

5. me and my little golden

Oi Tudo bem! :)

hahah i think i have had companions from just about everywhere! So cool! Well this past week was crazy! On wednesday the goldens arrived and we drove to the mission home to meet them.. i was nervous! hahaha When we got there all of the trainers and the sister training leaders and zone leaders were there, and guess who i got to see... sister Enero!!!!!! i haven't seen her since may! It was a happy reunion and she totally started crying. :) ahhaha i missed her a lot! Then after awhile we went downstairs where President was talking to all of the goldens and then they looked back and all of us and started freaking out. hahahah it was so funny. It made me remember back to my first day on the mission... soo scary! haha Then the assistants started calling the goldens up one by one, and then describing their trainer, and then announce who it was, and the trainer would come up and hug their golden and get a picture. A lot of the time everyone is so awkward walking up and then giving an awkward side hug.. so its pretty funny to watch. :) so as I was looking at all of the goldens, i was trying to see which one was my companion (because i knew her name) and then in the very back of the room, i saw this tiny tiny little sister going crazy hugging onto her thai mtc companions as she sat there waiting. hahah and of course they call me her last... so when she went up, one of the assistants was describing me, saying even though i wasn't "large in stature" that i was mighty or whatever.. and then he called my name and before they could announce which area it was, i had already ran to the front of the room and almost knocked her over when we hugged. ahahahah and as we were laughing and hugging, sister costa says, "OH! shes small like me! " and so then everyone was laughing! She is hilarious, let me just tell you that right now. :) So that was a fun experience!

So Sister Costa is from Favela, Rio, Brazil. She has been baptized for 3 years and she is 26 years old. She was brought up in a pretty rough environment, and has lots of scary stories about bandits and things that happen in her home town. She has good english, but struggles to understand aussies because they speak so fast, but that doesn't stop her! It was so funny, the first door we knock on, someone opens it and sis Costa says, "does mary live here?" i kind of looked at her confused, becuase it caught me off guard.. hahaah then she introduced who we were and stuff, and then when the lady responded, she just looked at me really puzzled because she couldn't understand. ahahhaah so funny. also she will clap outside of houses and yell random names to get people to come outside. I try to tell her that we aren't in Brazil anymore but she doesn't care. hahah She did serve in Brazil for a transfer before going to the provo MTC for 9 weeks so she has been out for 3 months already. But one super cool thing about her... so awhile ago when Elder Anderson of the quorum of the 12 came to our mission, he was asking people to raise their hands from different countries, and when he said south america, no one raised their hands. So then he said, "well, when you get a missionary from south america here, you will know that i assigned them to come here." and Sister Costa is the first one in ages that has been assigned to the ABM! How cool is that?! I feel so honored to be her trainer. :)

Ok, funniest experience this week... we were door knocking and after talking to this guy for a bit, he said, "man, you two are short. When i first opened the door i thought you were hobbits!"... hahahahahahahahahha we were laughing so hard afterwards. hahah and a few more people have mentioned our height since then, so it will probably continue. :)

Well I love you sooo much! thanks for all of your support and love. Have a great week!

love, sister Alldredge

 

Me and Sister Costa!  My little Brazilian Golden!

Love love love these girls!

My family away from home!

Sister Costa trying to stay awake during planning....hahahahaha so funny.  She was pacing the floor and doing wall sits because she kept dozing off and not paying attention sitting down.  Just a tad bit of jet lag.

The 4 Sisters in the flat: Sister Salu from Samoa, Sister Custan from the Philippines, Sister Costa, and me

I know you are all dying to know what happened with transfers.......... so i'm staying, and training. woot woot. But i'm soooo sad that Sister Lilo is leaving! I will miss her sooo sooo much. But I'm excited to train! Plus they are adding 2 other sistesr in marsden and so there will be 4 of us in the flat. my favorite! Heavenly Father is so kind to me. But i think my golden will be from Brazil! But ill find out for sure on wednesday :)

but this past week was really good! I'll send you pictures next week when I get them from sister Lilo. Like last p-day, we had a nerf gun war with our zone. It was the best p-day ever! the elders set up this cool obstacle course in the cultural hall and we split up into teams and if you got hit you had to run to this room and recite a scripture before going back in. hahah it was so fun!

Also we got another sister, Sister Malau to come and stay with us this week to help her know how to train for this coming transfer.  And so one day we saw this part member family we have really been working with and the mom, Amy, broke down and was having a really hard time with everything. So we came back and cleaned and I did the dishes for 3 hours while sister Lilo and Malau cleaned the family room. It was so dirty and nasty, but somehow I made it through. :) And then afterwards Amy asked us what we were doing for dinner the next day, but i did NOT want to eat there. And so i was just like, well.. ill have to check my schedule but I think we may have an appointment,... so she said, thats alright, you can just come the next day. So i knew we were not going to get out of it.... so we went and had dinner and it wasn't too bad! I just tried not to think about what she used to make the food with and if she washed her hands or not... but i'm still alive so no worries. :)

also family, thanks for the letters and pictures! I loved them! :D kyle looks so cute in his mission clothes. :)

Well I love you!!!!

                                                                  1. nerf gun war

                                              2. our favorite family!!!!!! the sweet Taylors!

TELOFA! as you can see from the pictures, we had a pretty eventful week... from talking sister Lilo into letting me cut her hair.. to stake conference with elder walker of the 70 in our puletasi's.. to just enjoying this great work!!!

And as you have probably figured out, we find out this saturday about transfers..... pretty scary because will probably determine where i finish my mission and who my comp might be for the rest of it too... i would love love love to stay with sister Lilo, but we will see what happens. Apparently there are 10 new sisters coming in, and so from the big intake last transfer too that will need to be follow up training, and with all the elders, almost half of the mission will be training next transfer! So we will see what happens.... 

But quick funny story, so we were at stake conference and we went back to say hi to Chris and Emaunel and Chris says, "why do yous look pretty today?.." uhhh hahaaha #awkward. apparently we usually don't look pretty. hahahah 

Also we got to go on tradeoffs, so i went to pacific pines in the gold coast with Sister Evans. It is a very rich area where all of queenslands big amusement parks are. It was really beautiful and so fun to be with sister evans! Crazy that she is now my STL because i was hers when she first got in the mission! Its fun to see not only how investigators change and improve but missionaries as well. 

OH! We had another miracle! So wehad dinner planned with a member, and

she was telling us to come to her sisters house who is less active that had just moved into our ward boundary and have dinner there. So when she sent us the address it ended up being our next door neighbor in our apartment complex, hahah! crazy! and when we went, they told us that the less active's daughter is 9 and is wanting to be baptized with her cousin on the 25th of this month! So... miracle! and the mom said that she wants to come back to church, so that is a blessing as well! 

Well i love you all soo much

                                                1. I love all of the beautiful trees in this place!!!

                                                  2. With chris and emanuel at stake conference

                3. The puletasi (samoan dress) that Sister Lilos family gave me, so sweet of them!!

                                                                                

                                                                               4. Before....

                                                                               

                                                                                5. After! :D

         6. Stake Conference with some of our zone and our sweet Mission President & his Wife!

                                                   7.  New Zealand food with Sister Evans

                                            8. Tradeoffs with Sister Kunz and Sister Evans