My beautiful area.

 

 

March 19, 2013

First I just have to say I have never been so grateful in my whole life! We are in the most beautiful place on earth! Kohala is this little hidden gem tucked away on Big Island. Everywhere else is black rock but here it is tropical and lush and green and cool! I LOVE it here with all my heart! The people here are the nicest people on earth! Our little ward is the greatest!

 This area is full of rolling green hills with cows that have all the lush green grass they want! And you would love the little town part! It looks like you are in Yellowstone because it's all these old cute little shops! It’s just soooo cute! My heart will forever be in Kohala I love it here!

 The Rapiers are the Senior Couple serving here and they are the BEST and we LOVE them! It's really like having a Mom and Dad right there all the time! They picked us up from the airport and had leis already for us and have been driving us around showing us beautiful Kohala and introducing us to everyone!

 My companion is awesome too, she is such a hard worker. We went to seminary the first morning we got here and there were only 6 kids! Their graduating class has 80 students! But even though our ward is small our area is HUGE!

Today for p-day we went with the Rapiers to go whale watching and have a picnic! I seriously love them and this place!

Sister Christiansen

Transfers are done! Halleluiah! The new sisters are great! We got out first 19 year old sister! She is from Taiwan and you would never know she was any younger than the rest of us. This was the biggest transfer too! We had 15 new elders and 12 new sisters all come out! We have 24 sisters now in the VC which is the most we have ever had so we had to put bunk beds in one of the pads to fit more sisters. Oh and cool thing: For the first and probably last time in my life I got a new car for my birthday!!!! Woot Woot! We have so many sisters now that we needed to get another car here and so we are now the proud owners of a brand spankin new car-it even smells like new car!! yummm : )

All is well I love the mission and life is great! Have a wonderful Valentines I am sending you all my love! You are the best ever!!!

Love you!!!
Sister Christiansen

This week my companion and one of my pad mates have been really sick so another sister and I covered both our areas for a couple days and it was fun because we had choke work! So many people to see and one day we were being blessed like crazy- everyone we went to see was home! But anyway it has just been an all around good week!! I hope you all have a great week too! I love you so much! CCCHHHEEHHHUUU!

Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka!!!! CHEEHUU!!!!! Can I just say how fun Christmas is going to be! We are having a celebration with the Sr. couples tonight where we are all going to sing carols, have treats, and watch some Christ centered movie. Then tomorrow we will wake up and open presents!!! Then have a zone breakfast then call our families!!!! (BEST PART) Then later in the day we are going to have a gingerbread house making contest, and white elephant and a scavenger hunt so it should be fun : ) I would like you to know I woke up to pure bliss this morning! Picture this: we all pulled out our mattresses and put out the presents and slept in the family room with the Christmas lights and first thing we all did when we woke up was lay in bed and play the uke!!! So thank you for that dear Christmas present I felt like a little kid again on Christmas day. Just waking up and playing with my new toy haha. But anyways I am just so so so stoked to talk to you tomorrow!

Alright some quick highlights: first off I am companions with SISTER MILLETT again! That is seriously unheard of! Out off 22 sisters I am serving with her again! I am so stoked! I have known this for a while because we help with transfers but something could have changed you know so I haven't said anything but here we are back again! And let me just tell you I am very very very grateful to serve with her again! I love her so so so much! We have a great time and work really well together! She has the easiest personality to serve with : ) We have had quite the week though. We went to Honolulu on Tue to do all the transfer stuff then on Wed and Thurs we had to go to Koniohe to get the car checked and fixed and then on Sat we were on exchange haha. Oh funny story we went over to see one of our friends and when we get there she is wearing a t-shirt that says "I'm a Mormon I know it I live it I love it" When I saw that I was like WAIT WHAT haha how did you get that-that’s so awesome (mind you she is our investigator) and she said they were handing out free t-shirts to all the Young women so she got one haha. So sweet huh! The ward is so bomb too! The young women invited her to their activity on Sat night where they all went ice skating in town at ice palace and she went and had a way good time! I was so happy to hear about her getting involved with the ward; that will make all the difference!

Love ya all,

Sister Christiansen

Alright so let’s see... This week went so fast! We had our ward Christmas party which was a blast! We had a live nativity hahah and the bishopric rode in on three horses as the wise men. How sweet is that! We just did it over at Laie Park so that was fun! They had choke food and then we sang some Christmas carols and watched the nativity.The next day we went to a birthday party which was really fun! Man so much partying this week : ) They even had a live Mariachi band and a piñata for the kids and yummy Mexican food! I was so grateful for that! I miss Mexican food! And then because the mother is Polynesian they also had the typical plate lunch stuff too so it was fun to have both the cultures represented!

The youth in the Arise and Shine video are all in my ward – which is so awesome. They are all great. If you haven’t seen it, look it up on the church web site. My mom and I love it – we watched it even before I came here. It was used for this year’s theme song for the 2012 Young Men/Young Women’s theme.

We have a baptism this week – yea.  Man this is going to be one crazy week! Tomorrow we have our deep clean then Wed is the baptism then Friday we do the transfer news then Mon my companion will be pau! And then Tue it's already time to go back to town and help with all the craziness of transfer meeting! We will be bringing in the new missionaries and figuring all that out again! I can't believe it's already time! And then wow just like that it will be Christmas!!!! YEA! Oh Grandma asked about our plans for Christmas so I shall share : ) we are going to go to the Sr. couples and have some treats and sing Christmas carols and do a white elephant and then come to the VC and watch a Disney movie!! CHEEHU! (that’s Christmas Eve) and then Christmas day I will be calling my family. The VC will be open for a little bit too.

Love ya,
Sister Christiansen

 Every Sunday night we have Christmas performances so this was us last night with  singing in the Ha'ula Choir.

I have learned to Haka! Sweet huh

This week has been probably the most exhausting but fastest week of my mission. Because we have to go on exchange with all the sisters and the transfer is only 5 and a half weeks because of Christmas we have already been on exchange with two sisters this week. It's crazy-I haven't really even been in my own area at all because I have been in the other sisters’ areas with them. Going on exchange with the other sisters is really a nice way to get to know them. I am grateful I get to do this - I am really enjoying it!  I didn't realize all the stuff they did before. It seems like there is a lot more administrative stuff that goes into missionary work then I realized. It's all good though.

So we drove to transfers in Honolulu (I can say I have officially driven to Honolulu now. I was a bit nervous but it all worked out fine. The traffic was insane though!) and we picked up the 6 new sisters. 
 
Also something really special that happened to us this week was we were running all around the VC trying to round up numbers for the ZL's and in walked these two ladies that were so so so prepared I just stopped right there really quick and gave them a tour and the both wanted missionaries to come when they got home! It was just a little tender mercy! I had been worried before that with all the administrative stuff how would we get any actually missionary work done you know. But Heavenly Father saw we were trying our hardest and so He just sent them right to us. I think as long as we are working hard on whatever it is we have to do he will bless us to see miracles in our area and the Visitors Center as well.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!