Wednesday 6 February 2013

Oops! Long time no posts

Happy (not so) New Year. I just realised I haven't updated this blog since the beginning of December so sorry to all those who have checked in several times to find nothing new! Now the decision to start with the most recent email and work backwards or start with the oldest and work forwards! I suppose the latter would make more sense, so here goes

10th December 2012

This week has been pretty good although our car is out of action; the other missionaries had an accident that wasn't their fault. It's gonna be hard without the car as it's getting pretty hot. The cop that took their details was a less active member from Logan (south side of Brisbane) so it was good for him to be able to make contact with church members. To be honest I need to lose weight anyway so walking will be good. Transfers are this week, I'm pretty sure I'll move. I'm gonna miss the people here a lot. It's going to be weird going to a new area,  just when things were starting to pick up for real here.  

17th December 2012


                                            The above photo was taken at Townsville airport.

I have left Townsville and at nearly a year on my mission went to my first transfer meeting. I flew down on Saturday and stayed with the Holland Park Elders (near the city in the Brisbane Zone). Elder Greenfield in Holland Park is none other than Robert Greenfield from Sheffield who incidentally was in my counsellor group at the 2009 EFY in York... It's funny cos when I first came to the mission people asked do you know Elder Greenfield and I always said probably not there are a lot of people in England HAHAHAHAHA! It was  fun to reminisce  about home and the things that aren't in Australia (like Greggs!)

I'm now in Redcliffe area (I'm in Brisbane North Zone again) I'm just a little south of where I was a few months ago. My new companion's name is Elder Forman, from Utah.  I think I'll like working with him, we are both ready to work and we seem pretty well matched in personality too :) I'm also a District leader again - it should be a good experience to be District leader down here where I get a packet of instruction and everything. A lot of the responsibility is now on the Zone leaders now though as we just meet as a Zone now. One of the Elders that were in Townsville (Elder Latu) is now one of the Zone Leaders


24th December 2012

MEEERRRY CHRISTMASSSS!!!!!

It feels weird, there's Christmas music blaring all over but it doesn't really feel like Christmas. The mission Christmas party was AWESOME. It's good to back down with the rest of the mission.

We're actually having Christmas lunch with members tomorrow so that will be good. The ward members here are awesome and there will be some good work to do. Anyway I hope you are all well and have a wonderful (cold) Christmas :P I'll try to Skype tomorrow.


(Elder Kay was able to talk with us on Skype on Christmas Day so we could see how much weight he has put on (but he looks very well for it!) and hear how Australian his accent is!)

2nd January 2013


Hello all!,
It was great to  talk with you guys on Skype.  Things have been OK  here, a little slow for the Christmas period but we're going to pick it up. The mission achieved  450+ Baptisms this year which is the best in a while. We're going to focus on finding ( Tracting/GQing) as in this mission a third of baptisms come from finding so we're going to try to do 14 hours a week, we might do more depending on the heat because we also have the bike ride into our area.
 
I made waffles last week (we have an electric waffle iron) oh and we have maple syrup extract to make syrup it was yummylicious. Members give us so many canned foods and stuff, I swear we could live for two months - Heinz tinned stews and lots of baked beans, we also have sooooooo many kidney beans. Food tastes very different here especially from the bakeries and also the sausages; I was just thinking of Cumberland sausages a while ago mmmmmmm. The beef also tastes different here as the cows have a different diet.

The gospel is true and so is the Church. I forgot to tell you  it was temple day today (first time in like 8 months) it was great.


7th January 2013

Happy new year. Hope you're all well, I'm brilliant. It is a little warm but I'm kinda used to it by now.  It's been about 39 a couple of times but it's nice here because we're on a peninsula and so there is a really good sea breeze.

The work at the moment is picking up, we have lots of people who will hopefully progress as we work with them now that the Holiday season is over. 

This week I got to go on trade-off with the Burpengary Elders (it was interesting to be in familiar territory again) We taught some good lessons. .

The Gospel is true;  Joseph Smith was a True Prophet.


14th January

This week has been good. The Ward Mission Leader has some great plans for the ward missionaries We are going to start teaching this awesome family as they are now available.  I'm also planning to set up a Zone service project with the Help of the Zone Leaders which will be exciting. I'm not sure how many non-members use the family history centre but maybe we could check that out for potential people to teach.

Bush fires aren't really that close; we're not at risk but it's been pretty smoky around cos there was this big one on Bribie Island which isn't really that far as the crow flies.


21st January 2013

Another good week! We now have 2 new investigators and hopefully will have more this week as we have just started teaching a large family, they are great and I hope they will accept the gospel it will be so special to baptise a family.

It's crazy to hear about all this snow you have while it's boiling here. We had our first torrential rain in ages yesterday; it rained like a monsoon for half an hour and then this morning it's bone dry, it just evaporates so fast.

This Sunday we had a great Gospel Essentials class, we talked about Faith in Jesus Christ and we discussed how if we don't think we can get to the Celestial Kingdom it's like we are doubting Christ's capacity in the Atonement not just our own ability, it is truly incredible to think that Christ has paid the Price, all we have to do is keep the commandments. the Gospel is so simple. Ether 12 

I love you all, the Gospel is true and I'm so grateful for all Heavenly Father has given us.

Stay Valiant, Stay Strong and Endure.


28th January 2013

Elder Forman was transferred so I have a new companion by the name of Elder O'Connel from Idaho  we are quite alike in many ways so we get along great. Can you believe it there are going to be 34 new missionaries next transfer? That's almost a quarter of the current mission, heaps of missionaries will be training.

We've had a lot of storms recently so we weren't able to get he 15 hours finding we hoped for (on Sunday we even had to stay inside because of Cyclone warning) The weather has been crazy but it's blazing sunshine today. I'm no longer District leader,  never mind upwards and onwards. We weren't too badly affected by flooding. I don't even know if they need a clean up in Redcliffe but we will strive to try and serve the people and hopefully touch their hearts with the light of Christ.

I can't believe Michael will be on his mission soon.

The Church is true, Joseph Smith truly did restore the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ with the correct authority to the earth, I'm so grateful for that. I love you all. Keep Calm and Carry on :D

NEVER STOP BEING AWESOME!!!

Last but not least 6th February 2913

Today was temple day  so I'm emailing late. I've had a great week and a half though, me and Elder O'Connor work well together, we work really hard and we're always tired.  Our finding has gone up as has our potential investigator to hour finding. We are hoping to achieve our goal.

Dad I know what you mean by loving the people. One time someone came to the door with a really rude attitude and we were just polite and happy and we asked if there was anything we could do for him and he seemed to feel a bit bad as we went away cos he apologised to us. I know that even if people do not accept our message then we can touch their lives and help people in other ways.
 
I am loving my studies. 










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