Apr 22 2013

Transfers once again! But luckily, Monsen and I are staying together for his final transfer. Which basically means I will stay here next transfer as well. But that's okay, because I really like this area. :)

Since the transfer meeting is tomorrow but Elder Monsen and I are taking our P-day today, I don't know too much about who is going where -- just the basics, i.e. who's leaving. The missionary who was mid-transfer moved into the area is going to be moving out, I guess it was just a temporary shift. Down in EMP one of the elders is moving out while the others are shifting around, and in Gold coast one of the elders is moving out as well. Most likely situation is that one of those two elders will come here. I'll let you know next week.

Anyways... the best news this week was A BAPTISM!

The Investigator's story: He's a student at UQ studying architecture (which he doesn't like so much, but that's a different story, haha). About a year ago missionaries contacted him on the street in St. Lucia, and he met with them a few times -- he was taught mostly just the Plan of Salvation -- but at that time he wasn't too interested, didn't feel comfortable going to church etc so eventually they didn't stay in contact. Fast forward a year. My companion was going through former investigator records and texting people fruitlessly, and then he got a reply for this one. From the investigator's perspective: he had just returned from China two days before and was very surprised to recieve a message from missionaries he hadn't talked to in a long time. We set up a time to meet him at the chapel, and he said sure! The next day we met with him and taught about god and prayer. He told us his story. This time he was fully committed. He didn't come to church the sunday immediately following, so we were wondering if he really meant what he said. But we continued to meet with him and teach him, and he came to church the sunday after that. He later told us, that first time in church he felt the most peaceful he has ever felt in his life. He couldn't understand the speakers, but the language of music is universal. He was a solid progressing investigator from the beginning, making leaps and bounds where most investigators just inch along. The only real hiccup we had was when he went to China for a week to visit the graves of his ancestors on April 5 (it's a chinese holiday called Qingmingjie in pinyin, I'm not sure what the english name is, you can look it up). We set a date for Apr 20 before he left. A week and a half later, he came to english class again -- and his date was still good!

The Baptism: It was a small affair, we didn't even have a pianist because she couldn't make it, but we just sang a cappella anyways. There were two heartfelt talks by some of the members who helped in teaching, and then my companion performed the baptism. At sunday the following day, the Bishop performed the confirmation.

I'll get some pictures to send next week; I forgot to bring my camera to the library. :P

In other news: My companion and I surpassed our goal of 100 lessons in the transfer! We hit something like 101 or 102.

We are finishing our sweets-fast today, it was much more diffilcult than soda the previous week. We'll have to think of something to do next to help our investigator (who now has a date for the 19th of May) continue following the Word of Wisdom.

Two fun stories from the week: Elder Monsen and I have been teaching english to one of our investigators and last week we were planning strategies to help improve writing, which most Chinese/other non-natives find is them most difficult area. We came up with the idea to read a book in english, on learning that he enjoys reading, especially good literature (like Oliver Twist, one that he read at university in China). We took him to a little book store to discuss ones that would be good to read, and on my recommendation he chose Mark Twain's Adv. of Tom Sawyer and Adv. of Huck Finn (they were in one volume).

I was GQing in the square one day and sat down next to a large group of Taiwanese people. I heard one girl notice and start talking to a guy, mentioning missionaries in Taiwan and in particular the english classes that missionaries offer for free at church. I began to talk to them in chinese and they were all dumb-founded. They are trying to find a place to stay at right now, hopefully they'll come to english class next week. :)

That's all for the week. Send more emails! Have a good week, take care!

Elder J. Colton Ladd