Christmas is getting closer! And it's getting hotter and hotter here in Australia. Also, rainier -- this season tends also be the seasons of rain, monsoons, and so forth. Most days are bright and sunny though, and remind me of Atlanta during June and July. It has yet to get hotter though... haha.
Not too much to report this week, except for at least one cool experience which I will share in a moment.
One night this week, Elder Lee and I as well as two other Elders from EMP, Davies and Monson, made our own hotpot with some of our recent converts and investigators! It was a good experience, the investigators and members hit it off very well. By the way, the hot pot we made ourselves was very good as well--my favorite I've had so far (I think this is the third time I've had hot pot?). I really like Asian food, did I mention? :) My favorite food of all remains cereal and milk though, haha.
On Thursday we had what is called an "Interview training." I must confess, when I first saw it on the schedule, and no one bothered explaining it to me, I was thinking it might be something like they train us on how to conduct baptismal interviews or something. It's actually just a normal training meeting, but President and Sister Langeland are elsewhere, interviewing the elders and sisters one by one. The President and I had a good talk, he is an inspiring man, I hope to be like him someday.
We had a baptism on Sunday! It was a chinese investigator, one of those who had been with us eating hot pot last week, haha. She's good. At the baptism, our district leader and I arranged a musical number -- we sang "When Jesus Christ was Baptized" from the Children's hymnbook. Oh, also, on this subject, during sacrament meeting the chinese members of the ward performed a special musical number, a special arrangement of "Silent Night" with another song ("Stars were gleaming" maybe is the name?), all in Chinese. It went really well. Most of the members sang just the melody, but for a verse I sang in a Triplet as a bass. I really enjoying singing hymns! Thank you mom for teaching me how to sing, I want to at some point teach all the chinese members how to sing too :)
I'll put few words in here, at my dad's request, on how church works, I forget if I've mentioned it before. So, I am assigned to the Eight Mile Plains Ward (Eight Mile Plains Stake). We have Sacrament meeting all together, Chinese members included -- we have no official Chinese branch, we are still fully a part of the ward. After Sacrament meeting, however, we go to a special Sunday School (well, actually Gospel Principles) which is held in Mandarin.
We generally have 20 to 30 people there, including missionaries. Most of our chinese members are young adults, we also have a few single mothers, one family, one older couple, and additionally 3 to 5 Australians who are either part of the Ward Mission team or soon will be, haha. Three of them speak Chinese. From the single mothers and the family, we probably have maybe 5 to 8 babies, toddlers, and children under the age of 10.
Following Sunday school, we go to Relief Society and Priesthood. I'm not sure on Relief Society -- I think it might be part english, part chinese -- but Priesthood is held altogether (english) for opening exercises, then there is a chinese lesson taught up on stage while an english lesson is taught down in the cultural "centre" (lol).
I think we will definitely be prepared to start our own, albiet dependent, branch next year. What we lack the most is melchizidek priesthood holders, we have less than 5, only 2, maybe 3 of which that are active. Of course this doesn't include the missionaries and the Australians, haha. We also struggle in that many of our members, being students, return to China eventually. Lastly, since many of are members are students without vehicles, transportation to the chapel is difficult. Nevertheless, the future of the Chinese program is bright. Our goal next year is at least 3 baptisms a month from the program.
Since the incident last week, we have been GQing at the bus stop far less, and going tracting much more. Elder Lee doesn't like it very much, haha. I just think that we need to get better, and it'll be fine, though it probably will never be *as* effective as the bus stop.
Sunday evening, we missionaries had the opportunity to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. We watched the broadcast at our chapel. It was inspiring. All I can say to all of you is: go watch it yourselves!
That about wraps it up in terms of little stories. Here's the experience I wanted to share.
On Saturday, Elder Lee and I decided to do some GQing, having done mostly tracting on Friday. We initially planned to take the bus to a different bus stop further north, but then decided to stay in Sunnybank because there was a good amount of people. No harassing took place of course, haha. After a while, an old, small chinese lady came and sat down next to me, and I started talking. We talked about this and that -- I tried my best to transistion into spiritual subjects, such as what I do as a missionary. When I asked her what church she goes to, though, she responded rather unexpectedly: the same one as me!
This took me by surprise. I realized, though, that she *did* look a little familiar -- she had come to church the previous sunday with someone else. I learned that this person was the grandson of the lady's friend, who had brought her to our church (He is a member) because of the translation available, the lady's english is not very good. I'm still not sure if this lady is a member or not--I asked if she had been baptized, and she said that she had, long, long ago in Hong Kong, where she grew up in a poor family, but I don't know if that was into the LDS Church or not. Nevertheless, I felt prompted to ask her if she had a copy of the Book of Mormon. She said no, so I gave her one.
I looked for her at church the next day. She was there again, with her friend's grandson again. In Sunday School, her friend's grandson introduced her. She stood and said her name, and then she pointed across the room at me and said "And he gave me a Book of Mormon yesterday!" She was so excited, I think I became her best friend from that, haha. I am grateful that the Lord prompted me to show that loving gesture at the bus stop the day before.
The reason I feel this experience is special to me is because of the messages shared by the First Presidency at the Christmas Devotional. When President Uchtdorf spoke on recieving gifts with grace and enthusiasm, I thought of how excited the simple gift of a Book of Mormon made that lady. When President Eyring spoke on gifts of love, he actually mentioned the gift of the Book of Mormon that missionaries make available to all freely. And when President Monson spoke on loving and serving the elderly, I thought of how that simple gift from my heart had made this woman, whose children are all grown up and moved away, and who has little do during the day besides watch TV (now she can read the Book of Mormon instead! :) ) feel special.
I'd like all of you to remember that this Christmas season. First, watch the Christmas Devotional if you haven't already! You can find it on lds.org. Then, act! I know if you do so, by giving and recieving gifts of love, with love, will feel happy, like I did when the first words out of the mouth of this old lady when she introduced herself was "He gave me a Book of Mormon!"
Have a great week. Enjoy the cold weather for me!
Elder Ladd
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