The new missionary training meeting was a little bit more exciting this transfer than it was last transfer, because of the lack of experience -- for the most part, it went smoothly, until the exercise on Friday morning. To review the itinerary of the meeting:
On Thursday the trainers drop off their goldens at Kangaroo Point just after lunch, where they are a few trainings by President and ourselves. There were a few hiccups with logistics of trainers dropping off their companions, because overnight they need to create companionships among themselves and we arrange that. It still went OK though. In the evening,we walk through the park to dinner at a restaurant (GQing people in the park on the way, and back). After more training we travel by taxi and van to the hotel.
In the morning, we normally do an exercise with the goldens where we jog along the Brisbane river waterfront (the city is quite beautiful in the mornings, I'm sure you can find pictures online of the view of the city from along the river). Then we come to the cliffs below the temple, where there is a narrow pathway up with an iron railing, and we relate the scene to the Tree of Life (narrow path, iron rod, river the side, great and spacious buildings, Temple is the tree of life at the end). At the top we do the Snap the Gravity exercise program, then we jog back.
However, we ran into a problem: the hotel we normally go to was booked. And so was every other hotel in the vicinity. Turns out that it was the weekend of an Eminem concert in the city, and so very few hotels had vacancies (and none with enough for 19 missionaries, 4 assistants and a mission president and his wife). So the closest we could find was down, even further south than Sunnybank, in a suburb called Springwood. The hotel was great, but for exercise in the morning, we planned to drive to a park---but than we started running into issues with having seats in the car, knowing where to go, etc. In the end, the goldens at least made it to the park, and two of the assistants, but I was left with one of my companions, and President Henderson himself. We exercised together in the Hotel's gym instead. Then all the missionaries had to get ready, eat, and get in the taxi back to the chapel (Eight Mile Plains chapel was closest). From then on, things went smoothly at the meeting, but the morning was hectic.
Right after the meeting, I began trade-offs with the missionaries here! And I've been here ever since. It's the longest trade-offs I've ever been on (or that I've heard of anybody else going on, to be honest). The purpose of the long-term trade-off is to help the missionaries here but more importantly to gather information on the Chinese program which I can return and report to President on my return. On Saturday we got some good GQing in. There was a high school student I spoke to I had a good experience with. When I first started speaking to him about God, he expressed emphatically "I believe in myself!" It's a common opinion among the Chinese, and probably other cultures as well. However, when I bore testimony of how my relationship with Jesus Christ has blessed my life, and promised that it could help him too, he responded with a surprised, sincerely, "Really?" He said he would be interested in learning more.
On Sunday, we had Stake Conference. Before the general session, there was a session especially for recent converts and returning members. 3 of them were invited to share the experiences and their testimonies: a man from NZ who encountered the church through member-missionary work (his story was powerful, I'll include a bit in just a moment), a man from Africa who was lost in drugs and alcohol when he first came to Australia, until he met the missionaries, and finally one of the missionaries who was a convert himself a few years ago.
Finally, I just want to include a powerful statement the first recent convert made in his testimony. He shared how a large reason that he stands in the place he is now (He was ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood at conference), is because of something his son said to him the first time he went to church. His son asked, with utmost sincerity and innocence, "Promise me that we will come to church every Sunday!" The father made that promise, and has kept it ever since. We must all remember the simple lessons that can be taught to us by children or others we minister to. In the gospel, the only teacher-student relationship is between ourselves, individual students, and God, the Master Teacher.
I hope everyone has a great week. Take care!
Elder J.Colton Ladd
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