Feb 4 2013

My new area is AWESOME! And my new companion is awesome too! It's made me super excited for this month -- "February Frenzy," it's our goal as a mission to set 150+ dates for March in preparation for our "March Miracle," 75 baptisms in one month, which will be a high water mark for the mission. The work here is real good.

Our flat is about 20 minutes walking distance from Kangaroo Point, where the chapel and the Brisbane Temple are located. We use the chapel as a teaching location sometimes, which gives us the opportunity to offer chapel tours as well -- much more convenient than the chapel in Eight Mile Plains, where every thursday (sports night @ chapel) and every sunday (church) is a struggle to get people to church, and there are very few teaching locations around Sunnybank (McDonalds is noisy and distracting, but it was what we used there anyway -- I hear in the future we'll have an office space there we can teach and have activities at).

The city center is a short bus ride away, it's 10 minutes or so to the nearest bus stop and then 10 or 15 minutes by bus to get here. So far it's where we've done most of our finding, though we are still trying to work out which locations are the best at which times. "Queen Street" and "King George Square" are some of the main places we GQing at. I'm still getting used to it, it's completely different from what we would do in Sunnybank. At the bus stop in Sunnybank, you could wait until some sat down and then sit down next to them and start talking, while in Queen Street, since people are going place and doing things, you normally walk with them -- or if you're bold enough, wave them down. The latter is what the senior missionary of the other companship does, I want him to teach me some time. That's how he met the missionaries, at a university down in Sydney.

Speaking of universities, there are a few in the area that are apparently good for GQing, though so far Elder Monsen and I haven't gone to any much. Right smack dab next to the city center I mentioned above is the Garden Point campus of QUT (Queensland University of Technology). We go there to teach our most progressing investigator. There is also another, larger campus of QUT 10 minutes north by bus called Kelvin Grove.

The campus that is the biggest and holds the most promise, though, is the St. Lucia Campus of UQ (University of Queensland). We just set up an LDS Student Association there -- way exciting!! Orientation starts next week, and we will be there with a tent sent up and everything to advertise. This will be a huge step in the missionary work here, because we will then be able to use campus facilities regularly for activities and teaching. Also, we might get permission to contact people on campus as long as it is about the LDS SA (We've got some sweet flyers for it). I can't wait!

If we're not GQing, we're tracting -- the whole city is availabe to us, right down to Sunnybank and more -- the west side is actually part of our area, which is the side that has the bus stop and the McDonalds EMP elders go to teach at. Borders between the chinese areas are loose, Griffith University, Sunnybank, and Sunnybank Hills are essentially the areas where both sides are allowed to work. We still tract in the city of course, leaving the areas down there for the other elders to tract.

In terms of teaching, there a few places in the city center -- There's a Hungry Jack (Burger King in Australia) which is just like the McDonalds in Sunnybank, not ideal; QUT campus when we are teaching someone from there; and the Botanical Gardens next to QUT, which are unfortunately closed because of damage from the recent weather. There are probably quite a few other places as well which I just haven't learned of yet, on the whole it's more convenient than EMP was.

The ward here is awesome. The family ward, which we aren't assigned to but attended this past week because we are teaching a chinese family, has meetings in the morning, and the YSA has meetings in the afternoon. There are a lot of people to help out with teaching, although mno many speak Chinese, there are maybe just 4 or 5 active Chinese members of the 100+ member YSA ward. It has left me with a very good impression though.

We have a great pool of investigators. One is going to be baptized in early March! He's way good -- he just took the IELTS test last week which we helped him prepare for (you can look up what that is if you want on your own) and has promised to read, prayer, and come to church regularly now that that is over with. He's from Shanghai, and just graduated from QUT with a masters degree in Accounting. Most importantly, his desire to be baptized is very strong. He's been with missionaries for a way long time but was recently re-contacted and made the decision he wants to embrace it fully and for good.

The family we teach is the next best, they don't have dates but they are still way good. It's a single mother, 30s or 40s, with four children, age 13, 10, 3, and 2 I think. The oldest and youngest are boys, the others daughters. Teaching children is interesting, something completely different from what I'm used to, although I'm sure it will be a handy skill in the future, haha. Right now Elder Monsen and I are trying to decide if we should give them to EMP or noth. They live that direction (not within EMP boundaries) but the mother would benefit from church in Chinese. On the other hand, the children would benefit most from staying in Brisbane ward. We're not sure yet what to do.

The rest of our investigators are a mixture: some Taiwanese working holiday, some Chinese university students, some FOB (Fresh off the boat) Korean and Chinese students at local English schools. There are a few which are promising which I can talk about in the future.

That's it for this week, though. Take care all!

Elder J. Colton Ladd