Jan 29 2013

Hello... from downtown Brisbane!

Yup, that's right, I've been transferred! It was an interesting round of transfers for all of us. Here's how it went down.

Before transfers came, I have to admit that I was hoping I would stay in EMP. I didn't want to leave behind all my investigators, especially the new ones, and this is the big transfer for our Mission goal of 75 baptisms in March: it starts now, with baptismal dates and goals. I really hope all the investigators Elder Lee and I were teaching are baptized in March. Three in particular stand out in my mind: one who we set a date with last week, who came to church two weeks or so ago; one who has a massive (Mormon-size! 8 children total) family back in China he will be visiting for three weeks starting this weekend; and one who came to church last sunday who has an uncle I'm almost certain is a member of the Church in Hong Kong (When I told him the name of our church before he said he's heard it before, from his uncle, and when he came to church he said it was just like a church he had gone with his uncle to in Hong Kong before).

Then, on Sunday night, the call came: I am to pack. We gathered the information at this point and started speculating where I'd go:

I was the only one leaving EMP; the tri-panionship was splitting with one elder taking my spot. In the city, only one elder was leaving, who had been in the city for a long, long time; it was almost guaranteed he was to leave. In Gold Coast, one elder was leaving, and had also been asked by the APs if he'd be okay with moving to the English program. Elsewhere: we though the Chinese AP would be coming out of the office and the missionary who had gone English last transfer would be coming back.

I figured I would be going to the city; the AP would go down to Gold Coast and the rest to EMP. And I was right about the first part! but I was totally wrong about the rest. The Chinese AP is still AP, he didn't come out of the office as had been anticipated. The elder in Gold Coast went english and the other elder stayed english. The elder from the city went to Gold Coast. This leaves us with currently only 10 Chinese missionaries... we all thought that was interesting. When we get the 3 new Chinese missionaries in the future there will be big changes (I know in previous emails I've said that one would be coming this transfer, but I hear there were visa delays, he'll be next transfer).

But all is well: I am in the city! And it will be an awesome transfer. My new companion is cool, and he has a good history: some of the best and most solid recent converts I worked with in EMP were his from last year. My companion is half-Taiwanese, from Utah. His father served in the Taipei Taiwan mission and met his mother there.

I sorry to leave my trainer (my "father" in missionary slang), we ended with our relationship higher than it's ever been. But with the strength of our relationship comes the trust in him to take care of our investigators, and so I'm fine.

The other big news of the week is the weather. Starting on Thursday (if I recall correctly), it rained -- hard -- straight through Monday, when the sky cleared. Saturday and Sunday were the worst. Sunday was so bad that power outages were occurring all over Brisbane (not at our flat, fortunately, but some of our investigators were effected) and the Assistants to the President sent all the missionaries a text, at around 4 P.M. (we were in the middle of Priesthood meeting), to return to our flats immediately. This meant that the baptism we had scheduled for 5 was canceled. She will be baptized next weekend, no worries, but I will no longer be the one performing the baptism of course since I'm out of the area.

Church meetings were canceled at this point as well and later that day the Stake emergency protocols were ordered. We checked on all of the Chinese members we are working with, they are all good. Brisbane is still feeling the effects of the cyclone but it's more north of Brisbane River now.

Side note: I'm glad my mom got me a rain coat while I was still in the MTC :) It came in handy when Elder Lee and I were tracting over the weekend, before Sunday.

This weekend was also Australia day, incidentally, the 26th of January. It's kind of like the 4th of July. Yesterday was a holiday as well, which is in part why I didn't email yesterday (libraries were shut down so even the other EMP elders, who didn't need to go to transfer meeting on Tuesday, decided to have P-day on Tuesday). It's funny because normal Australia day celebrations are things like: going to the beach, enjoying the sun, fireworks, having a barbeque or a picnic, and so forth. I can't imagine anyone did so with any measure of success, haha.

That's about it from this week. To celebrate my departure, for dinner yesterday we went to a Taiwanese dessert shop in Sunnybank, it was SO GOOD! :) It was a mountain of shaved ice with some kind of syrup added (cane sugar or maple sugar with water I think), condensed milk, and toppings: on one was mangos and vanilla ice cream, on another was taro (a delicious sweet purple-colored tuber) and red bean. I'm already craving it again, just thinking about it. Mmmmm.

That's about it though. Hope everyone is doing well! I am! Take care all.

Elder J. Colton Ladd