Picture time! I took a lot of good pictures this Christmas. Here's how the week went:
On Monday, last P-day, we had the a mission-wide Christmas party, then we went to a member's house in the evening for dinner.
On Tuesday, Christmas day, I opened my presents (packages and mail had been handed out at the mission party), then we went to our Bishop's house for breakfast. It was delicious, my favorite food of the the whole three days -- hot pancakes with a scoop of vanilla Ice cream and covered in maple syrup!! And lots and lots of yummy fruit too. After the bishops, we went to the ward mission leader's house for lunch. He had cooked the largest ham I've ever seen in my life, and it was tasty too. Finally, for dinner we met with a whole bunch of recent converts and investigators to make a hot pot (though I personally didn't end up eating too much of it, since I was so full from the two earlier meals).
Wednesday, Boxing day, was even "worse" -- somehow scheduling was a little strange, and so we were signed up for lunch at two different families' homes at two different times, meaning we went to both. And this was after going to a family's home for breakfast as well. The first thing we did, however, was skype our families! The best part of all! And then we went to breakfast and lunch and lunch and got smashed, haha. We were scheduled for a dinner, too, but we managed to get just the English Elders to handle that. We, instead, went and taught a lesson to my miracle potential -- in which he commited to a baptismal date! Woo hoo, my first one! I'll write more about this fellow later, his story is good.
The first of the week was pretty standard I suppose. There were just a few things I realized I forgot to mention from the week before that I thought you might be interested in.
On Friday, we did service for a single Chinese mother in our ward who is moving. We took all the garbage she had and whatnot after moving out, and took it to a dump. It was cool. When we first arrived at the property, there was like a bridge with a tollbooth on it, where the entire bridge was a scale taking the weight of our van and trailer. Then, we drove into a big (BIG) open warhouse where the center was a massive trough where you dumped your trash, and a massive bulldozer machine was compacting it. After thowing stuff away, we drove back to the bridge and were charged based on the weight change, that was cool. I didn't take pictures unfortunately because I didn't have my camera on me.
The other thing we did the week before last was go caroling as a Zone! We went to the big asian market place here in Sunnybank and went from restaurant to restaurant, singing a carol or too at each. It was very fun.
Okay, that's about it. The last thing before I get to the pictures I took will be tell the story I saved from last week, about my miracle potential.
It was a day of trade offs, where I was paired up with the two elders from the tri-companionship who just finished being trained themselves. We tracted for several hours, then went to the bus stop to GQ. I sat down and started talking to an asian man, about 30 years old. I found out he had just arrived from Taiwan a week or so before. I started talking to him about missionaries and church, and he shared with me an experience: He himself doesn't have much religious background, nor does most of his family. They are Buddhist by tradition only, not by belief. The only exception is this man's sister in law, who is Christian. About a month ago, this man's father got very sick. Deathly sick, in fact. He was sick for days, and the doctors predicted he would die. However, very quickly after this man's Christian sister in law prayer for this man's father one night, and sang hymns for him, his father miraculously recovered. This man felt that this truly was a miracle and has been wondering about the existence of God and Christ ever since. His father's health is now better than it was before he even got sick in the first place. Meeting me at the bus stop shortly after arriving in Australia made him excited and happy, and he (and I) feel that this is a sign from God as well. As he was getting on the bus, he said "Thank you for sharing this message with me! You have given me much hope!" (in a mixture of Chinese and english, of course, I paraphrase).
We met with himt he next day and taught him about Heavenly Father and about prayer. We commited him to pray on his own and he agreed. That night, at about 9, he did in fact pray -- twice! After he prayed the first time, he felt the Holy Ghost so strongly (that peaceful, warm, happy feeling) that he prayed again, and felt the same way! Ever since then, he has been praying every day, multiple times even. He told us how he prays when he goes looking for a job (He's here on a working holiday visa, but still looking for a job), and he feels that it helps him. He came to the Christmas party we had Saturday night, and then to church with us on Sunday, and he told us that he loved the atmosphere of the chapel. We taught him next on Boxing day, in which we finished teaching message of the Restoration and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon, which I wrote my testimony to him in. That lesson, we also asked if he'd be willing to be baptized after he recieved a testimony that the Book of Mormon is true, and he said yes. We haven't had the chance to see him again since (he went to Sydney with friends for the New Year), but I'm looking forward to see how it's gone.
So that's my story. Hard work pays off! If we hadn't tracted and worked 100% that day, I'm sure I wouldn't have met this man at the bus stop.
I'll end this email here, so I can start sending pictures of my Christmas. Take care!
Elder Ladd
His pictures crack me up. But I love seeing them. Makes my heart happy.
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