New Assignment

G'day!

It has been a great week, definitely full of surprises and miracles. We were called during our studies on thursday by President. He told us to be at City Headquarters in one hour! Something special was happening! So we got down there as soon as we could and were introduced to Sister Cruz. She is a recent RM, she served in the Boston Massachusetts mission but she is from Brazil. Her mission was the first mission to have something called the PVC (Portable Visitors Center). We are now the second mission! So she has come to teach us the ways! We spent 3 full days practicing and getting to know the program to prepare for the fireside on Sunday. It was the big night where we had our reveal to the whole mission and all the members this great new tool we have to assist in missionary work.

PVC

The PVC is a display with a TV screen and an iPad. On the iPad is an app the outlays 4 of the basic things we teach as missionaries. The Restoration, the Plan of Salvation, Temples and the Life of Jesus Christ. It shows mormon messages and videos that connect to all of those topics. The PVC will be take to all sorts of activities and events to assist in teaching and helping others become more well acquainted with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Both sets of City Sisters will be taking on this new assignment of using the PVC's. (That means I get to do it!)

We had a very successful fireside, heaps of people came. We were able to show off all four PVC's and the members and investigators loved it. It was a little overwhelming, people swarming around you and everyone wanting to talk to you. But it was so cool!

We had a few miracles this week.

We're dressed the same, how embarrasing

One of our investigators got really sick, some sort of pneumonia and she coughed so hard she fell over, hit her head and split it open. We had arranged for the Elders to go over and give her a blessing for the pneumonia, but they had arrived literally a minute after she had fell over and whacked her head. They were able to call the ambulance. Then at 10pm that evening she gave us a call saying they put staples in her head and have sent her home and she had no way of getting home. She was not in the right state to walk to the other end of the City and she didn't have any money for a cab. So immediately my mind went searching for members who could pick her up at this time of night. A family came to my mind but they have really young children, it is 10pm, I argued with my self thinking it was inconsiderate to call at this time. But I just kept feeling like I should. So I called them and they said they are just on their way home and they are passing through the CITY!! They were able to pick her up, it was perfect timing, perfect placement as well. I talked to the Brother who picked her up on Sunday and he said he felt impressed to take a different way home that night, then I called and he knew why. This experience really strengthened my testimony of how mindful God is of us and our trials. He put everything in place so perfectly to keep our investigator safe, from having the Elders arrive when they did to prompting us to call a family that really shouldn't have been able to pick her up but they could. Heavenly Father loves us. How perfect the Spirit was at prompting us all at perfect times as well. I am still amazed.

We had another experience with perfect timing this Saturday where we walked out of a members house not in our area but our ward boundaries, and bumped into a couple walking down the street. We ended up talking to them.  Once the lady realized who we were she got all excited and pulled out some pictures she had just printed and showed us. They said, "Miracles Happen" She was convinced meeting us was not a coincidence and that in fact it was a miracle (which she was right about). She expressed how there is only one God and we all just worship him differently, I asked well, if there is only one God then doesn't that mean there should only be one church? She thought really hard and then asked, I don't know, are you going to tell me? We ended up teaching her pretty much the whole restoration and she was so interested. We asked if we could come by her house and share more. She said yes but she didn't live in that house, she was just there to visit her partner. We said we weren't from the area either and were just visiting a member of our church. She told us where she lived and she lived in one of the suburbs that WE cover!!! I was so excited. Here God had placed someone prepared to hear the gospel in our path, we met her at the perfect timing, if we had left the house a few minutes later or earlier we would have missed her. We have a dinner appointment with her for tomorrow.

You might think this was England

Fun fact! This winter is the wettest, coldest winter Australia has had in 75 years! Last summer was the hottest summer in 39 years! Of course I would have to be sent to Australia the year they have their most extreme weather!!!

It has been a great week, I am sure this following week will be just as amazing. God is good!

Heaps of love,

Sister Coultrup

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Sister Bethany Victoria Coultrup

Australia Adelaide Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Happy Canada Day!

On Mon, Jun 27, 2016 at 2:55 PM, Bethany Coultrup <bethany.coultrup@myldsmail.net> wrote:

G'day Everyone!

So I have my new companion! Her name is Sister Maea, she just came down from Alice Springs, which was her first area. She has been out for four months now and is from New Zealand, but her parents are from the Cook Islands! She is a beautiful Sister, she is so kind and a joy to work with. It has been a lot of fun getting to know her this past week! She also has an incredible voice. 

beautiful new companion

This past week we haven't been in the City a lot because Sister Maea did not yet have a permit to proselyte in the City so we had to go into the suburbs instead, so it has been quite slow lately and we were rained on a lot. This week we had a lot of floods in Adelaide because of the heavy rains. 

We had a ward activity this weekend. It was the Prospect wards annual quiz night. I had a lot of fun there. We were with our recent converts from the ward. There were a lot of geeky questions to do with TV shows, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. There was also a "who can tell the best joke competition" and I told the one about Juan and Amal, which Dad will know. Everyone laughed really hard and I won the extra bonus points for our team. :)

awesome

This week is Canada Day which is great! Super excited, even though we can't really do anything but I have a few little Canadian souvenirs which my Mom sent me which I will give  to some people so that will be fun. 

prepped and ready

I am sure most people may have heard by now but Sisters are now approved to wear dress pants! Our mission is one of them so I can now wear dress pants! YAY, it will be way easier to bike now :) Sister Maea and I are going out to buy some today.

Anyways that is all for now. Love you all!

Sister Coultrup

Changes

G'day!

Hope everyone is well :)

This week has been all over the place!!! It has been really crazy. I was still with Sister Taylor and Sister Villaneuva this past week, so we continued to work in two areas all week. We would split the days in half. Half day in the City and the rest of the day in their area. Also because we combined sort of, we had heaps of tea appt's! The most I have had, even more than when Sister Siale left.

This week my Aussie Mum and Dad (the Watts) came up to the City and treated us to dinner. It was a great time seeing them again. I am very glad we got to do that!

We had a few great lessons this week, some people working towards the next ordinance (baptism), but there was a sad one where the person chose not to continue to learn. Everyone has their agency, it is just hard especially when you really come to love the person.

There are some big changes in the City! So my new companion is Sister Maea. I have not yet met her, she is probably on the airplane as I type this! Her first area was Alice Springs so she is pretty new and is coming down here. I have heard she is an islander and from New Zealand. So I don't know to much but I am sure it will be great!

They have also added another companionship of Sisters to the City! So we are now called the City North West Sisters and they are the City East Sisters. Because I am the only Sister that knows the City and the rules I was asked to give them a little tour this evening so they can know what they are dealing with. The City is on fire! Best  place in the mission to be right now :) Also the Headquarters now has beautiful artwork all over the walls which it didn't before so it looks a little more finished. 

We had a lesson with a part member family in my area this week. The mother is less active and she has two 9 year old children, a boy and a girl. This time, the boy threw about a million questions our way, lots of them were really deep for a 9 year old and he tried hard to "stump" us. We were able to answer all of  his questions and he expressed some upset that God is not answering his prayers. We asked him what he is asking God for. He is asking for more trash packs? I don't know what that is exactly but I think it is toys. His mum explained that God isn't Santa Claus, he won't just send us toys all the time. We invited him to pray at the end of the lesson and he prayed aggressively... He yelled during the prayer, "WHY WON"T YOU ANSWER MEEEEEEEEE!!!" It was very dramatic and hard not to laugh.. But it also hurt my heart that he was yelling at God like that. Anyways that was an interesting experience I had this week.

I don't have too much to say this week unfortunately. I will catch up with you all next week. Love you all heaps!

Sister Coultrup

--

Sister Bethany Victoria Coultrup

Australia Adelaide Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

G'day!

Hope everyone is well.

This past week has really flown by because it was insanely busy. Everyone wanted to say goodbye to Sister Siale before she left so we had the most tea dates I ever have had my whole time I have been in this area, squished all into 4 days. Crazy! It was such a relief getting rid of Sister Siale, she was so strange... Just kidding, I only said that because I know she will be reading this, love you! In reality, it was heart breaking. I hate saying goodbye to people, especially when you have no idea when or if you will ever see them again. But I know that she is needed at home now and she served a fantastic mission.

teary eyes

Sending my companion home

For the time being I have temporarily been stationed with Sister Taylor and Sister Villaneuva. They are the two that I share a flat with. We are working in both the City area and Allenby Gardens area. So we do half and half each day. It has been really hectic trying to make it work but we are enjoying ourselves. They are great Sisters and I am happy to be spending the week with some Sisters I know well.

Transfers will be next week, I will find out this Sunday who my companion is and what will be happening. I have a feeling lots of things are going to change. Oh also, just some news on my previous companion Sister Taufa, she just got transferred up to Darwin! Pretty cool. It is such a long ways away! I am excited for her. 

Visiting this crazy district

These past few days with the Sisters we have been going on splits with the members a lot because we are in a trio. Sister V and I have been doing a lot of door knocking which I was nervous to do because in the City we never door knock. It is all street contacting which I have become a lot more comfortable with. I also attended their district meeting which was great, so I will send a picture from that.

Hope you all have a great week. Love you heaps!!!

Sister Coultrup

--

Sister Bethany Victoria Coultrup

Australia Adelaide Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

One Year Mark

G'day!

This week has been extremely rainy. As per usual, I am sure I complain about the weather every week. Haha, sorry about that.

I had a cool experience this week where I had a question in mind, something that has been bothering me for a while and it was answered in a lesson we had. Funny, I think the lesson WE taught was actually more for me than the investigator. Answers I didn't know I had came out of my mouth and was exactly what I needed to hear. I don't know if it makes much sense, but definitely the Spirit was teaching, not me, and I was able to be edified along side our investigator.

I hit my year mark last week. How weird is that? A year ago I was in the MTC, fresh as a daisy, green as green can be and now I have been out for a year and I am serving in the Heart of Adelaide. I read my first journal entry on my year mark and, oh, how I have changed, how things have changed! It is really incredible. I can see how much I have transformed as a person and it all has been because of Jesus Christ, through following Him as best as I can He has stretched and tweaked me and continues to do so until I become the person he wants me to be. For my 1 year "birthday" Sister Siale took me to this all Amerian place called Nord Burger for lunch. It was really nice. We had appointments the rest of the day then a member took us out for dinner. It was pretty good, no I did not burn anything like other missionaries usually do.

On Saturday we had a 12 hour training. From 8:30am until 9pm we were told. I have never been in a training that long! All day we roleplayed different things, How to being teaching, inviting to baptism and finding. Also every single practice teaching was filmed on an iPad then uploaded onto President's laptop, then showed to the whole zone on the big screen and evaluated. NO PRESSURE RIGHT? It was a really full and exhausting day. I had a massive headache about halfway through. At around 7pm we were finishing the finding evaluations when one of the assistants said, "I am tired of being in this chapel, let's leave, and apply!" So we

did, they drove us all back into the City and we were given a specific part of the City to talk to people. We did that for an hour then were told to meet back at King William street at 8pm. President said he had a great surprise for us. They took us into a building and revealed to us our brand new teaching space! It is called the ZION CENTER! It is a floor of a building with rooms to teach in for City missionaries. This is almost better than Christmas, we really needed a space to teach because we can't teach outside anymore because it is raining and we have had no where else to go.

Also, Rundle Mall is open for proselyting too! Rundle Mall is a section of street that connects to this massive mall and this is where all the people are. It has been forbidden to preachers since the early 90s. But through our Mission President's diligence and persistence it is now open to us in some limited ways which is better than nothing. We also now have these really cool stands that share all the lessons and have Mormon Messages on them which we can use here in the City. 

I am so excited for all these new and big changes, the City just got even more exciting. Big things are happening here in Adelaide! So grateful to be apart of mission history! 

Love,

Sister Coultrup

--

Sister Bethany Victoria Coultrup

Australia Adelaide Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints