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.
