This past week one of the elders I was living with, whom I respect, switched places with one of the elders I used to live with in Sunnybank. Mid-transfer transfers are rare but aren't unheard; they can occur for a variety of reasons, such as making space for a trainee to come in out of schedule (some of the MTCs outside of Provo have different schedules, so trainees can come in mid-transfer). I was dissapointed to see the elder in the other companionship go but the other Elder is one that I like a lot as well, so it's alright.
We didn't quite hit the 14 finding hour mark that we wanted to last week, falling just one hour short, so Elder Monsen and I will need to make that hour up this week. Especially considering this weekend is General Conference, we will be doing a lot of finding this week.
On Thursday, we had a zone meeting in the morning after which the zone leaders came with us to the city. One went with my companion and I, and the other with the other elders. They had a mini-missionary with them as well at the time, allowing them to go on splits. Finding was awesome--one weird story, I talked to a few chinese students in the middle of the square that day, one of whom on Saturday I saw standing outside the house our family!! Crazy. In the evening, the man we baptized in March had us over at his house for hot-pot, Shanghai style. We brought our investigator from Hong Kong, and she enjoyed it as well.
On Friday night we were invited to another recent convert's house -- with 7 or 8 of her friends and roommates! They are all from Vietnam, and they made vietnamese food for us. There were two main dishes, one a salad-type thing with shrimp and pork, the other rice paper wraps filled with lettuce and a vietnamese meat-filled pancake thing. It was yummy. Afterwards we watched the 5-minute Finding Happiness video (in English, as unfortunately they don't have Vietnamese yet) and discussed a little about God, the plan of salvation, prayer, church, missionaries etc with them all afterwards. Two or three seemed especially interesting, in the future they might come to church with their friend. Another of her friends is already an investigator of ours who has come to church 2 or 3 times.
On Saturday, the bishop of Brisbane ward came with us to visit and teach the family we're teaching. It went very well, having his presence there helped the oldest son behave better, and we developed a good relationship between the bishop and the mother, who is still hesitant about baptism. It was very good for them in general. On Sunday he took the oldest son into his office and talked to him for almost an hour, and the son came out with a brand new leather quad, haha. I think he is making small improvements, which is really good, before this Elder Monsen and I were just about at the extent of our abilities with teaching him. Visiting their home was always the most exhausting thing we would do each week (even more exhausting than the exercise program I'm doing!).
After church on Sunday, we had a fast breaker -- a great big pot luck, essentially, for the fast Sunday. The theme was "American food", but funnily enough it was nothing like any American food I've ever tasted, haha. They ought to have just asked the elders :P It was nevertheless a good meal, and we had several investigators there. After that we stayed for a baptismal meeting, which was a good experience.
After the baptism, we visited a member of the ward who is on a list the Ward Council has called the "15 names" (for us just 10 names though). The Elders Quorum, the Relief Society, and the High Priest group (which we don't have) each choose 5 "names", members for the missionaries to meet who have been contacted first by just other members, with the idea to help less actives and also those who have nonmember friends they live with. The member we visited falls in the latter category, although her nonmember roommate wasn't able to join us at the last minute.
That's all for the week. I'm really really looking forward to General Conference next sunday! :D Take care everyone!
Elder J. Colton Ladd
No comments:
Post a Comment