Dec 3 2013

Sorry my email is one day late! This week, our P-day was moved to Tuesday for reasons I will explain shortly.

It has been a really cool week. We've seen several miracles!! Right after last P-day, I went on trade-offs with the companionship in our flat (since they are part of our district). By the way, here is an outline of our Zone, by district:

Enoggera 1: Zone Leaders! 
Enoggera 2: the elders in our flat 
Bunya Forest 1: sisters 
Bunya Forest 2: sisters

Kenmore 1: elders 
Kenmore 2: elders

Brisbane East: elders 
Brisbane West: elders 
Chermside: sisters 
Ascot 2: the office elders

(Ascot 1 is the Assistants to the President, they are sometimes counted as part of the zone)

River terrace 1: elders 
River terrace 2: sisters 
River terrace 3: elders

Anyways, back to the trade-offs. While on trade-offs, will tracting I saw a pair of chinese people on the street and GQed them. They were interested--in fact, the woman had gone to a church a few times with a friend--and we set an appointment. We visited her twice later that week. Both lessons went fantastic and we set a baptismal date for the 28th of December!!

On trade-offs with Kenmore 1 on Saturday, I once again tracted into a Chinese family with some interest. Kenmore is adjacent to Eight Mile Plains (in fact, part of Sunnybank is on the Kenmore side, but Chinese missionaries are allowed to cross the border), so I referred the family to the missionaries there.

Then, on sunday, a young Chinese woman walked into church off the street!! She came in the afternoon, during Bunya Forest ward meetings, and so the sister missionaries gave me a call and I rushed back to the chapel with my companion. This was her 4th day in Australia, and she plans to stay 2 years. She has always been interested in Christianity has thought about becoming a Christian in the future!! We discussed baptism on the 28th, although she felt that that might be a too quick.

We contacted a few referrals this past week, and three turned out to be really solid. One even came to church, and we challenged her to baptism on the 28th as well! She is a Nepalese woman whose mother and sisters are all Christian already, thus her desire to learn.

Another miracle that occurred is that we got a text late Sunday night (after curfew) that one of our most progressing investigators finished "the book". We learned that "the book" was actually "Book of Mormon Stories", not the Book of Mormon itself, haha---but that is still a miracle :)

Yesterday we had our first Zone Meeting. My companion and I created a acronym combining all the initiatives we felt the Zone needed: "B.L.A.S.T." for the "blast" we need to take off as a Zone. B stands for our Beginnings. There is a great quote by Elder Holland about how the success of a mission is decided between 6:30 and 10:00 AM. L stands for Labor, i.e. the work we put in. A stands for our Attitude. S stands for solid, referring to how we need to make our baptismal dates solid and not just wishy-washy goals. T stands for our Testimonies, how we are becoming converted to full-purpose missionaries.

After Zone meeting, President Henderson spent the day with our Zone! He traveled from appointment to appointment with the different companionships. With us, he went with us to visit recent converts---one miracle that happened was that he had met the recent convert by coincidence just the day before in Logan!

As you can see, there was a lot to write about this week. I am excited for Christmas and the transfer ahead. Have a great week and take care!

Elder J. Colton Ladd