This week is just a kind of short email, since it has only been a few days. There isn't too much to report on.
The main event of the week has been transfer deliberations (again) which take place from Monday to Friday. This transfer felt a lot easier than last transfer. Just like last time, we began by discussing the zone leaders. My companion from when I was a zone leader is now going home, and there are a few zone leaders who we felt would be good to take out of leadership so they have the chance to train before the end of their missions, so we started by discussing potential new Zone Leaders. There seemed to be quite a few more candidates this time than last time, so the process was much quicker. We then moved to district leaders and then finally trainers -- in just the first day alone, we managed to accomplish almost all of these, with the exception of all the Chinese missionaries, most of the sisters, and a few elder trainers.
Monday evening we had a family home evening at the home of a part-member family who has recently been coming back to church. They relationship has really struggled recently, and they agreed to finally see if church was the answer. The Spirit was powerful as they shared, in tears, about the difficulties they have faced that have led them to return to church, and their gratitude for what they have experienced ever since.
On Tuesday we continued from the day before with the trainers, the sisters, and the Chinese. Our greatest accomplishment on this day was fitting everything into place with the Chinese. We are going to try out a few new things with the Chinese, that I am very very excited about! (More on that next week of course). Afterwards, we tried to tackle the final few issues remaining with transfers but hit a roadblock. President brought us to a close more than an hour earlier than normal (We finished just after lunch, at about 1). For the rest of the day we proselyted as normal.
Our new weekly tradition, as a four-way companionship, is on Tuesday nights we feast on KFC or Domino's pizza (or both). They have 'cheap tuesdays" here for $5 pizzas at domino's or 9 pieces of chicken for $9.95 ---- both missionary classics. This was our second or third time I think.
We discovered why it had been necessary to end our deliberation on Tuesday early, when, first thing Wednesday morning, we received notice that 2 more missionaries would be arriving. These 2 missionaries finally helped us fit everything else into place and complete the puzzle.
On Thursday morning, we were already in a position to confirm most of the transfers, save one swap which President felt inspired to make after going through all of the names again. However, on Friday we were thrown another curve ball which took us by surprise. This came as a result of learning about a new area which would be ready to open, as opposed to another area which would not be ready in time -- so we moved the finally pieces into place after spending the morning in the temple.
Thursday afternoon, I went on tradeoffs in the city, which was a blast! I miss the city most of all, of all the areas I was in. Not only did I serve there the longest, but I grew there the most, experienced my first miracles, had my favorite companions, and so on. It felt great to be there again, even if was just for a short period. My hope is that I will be able to serve there again sometime before I finish my mission.
Today is our p-day, in anticipation of a week which may not have much of a pday -- monday is departing missionaries, tuesday is transfers, wednesday is missionary arrivals, and thursday is missionary leadership conucil. Woohoo... Wish me luck and pray for me please...
Tonight and tomorrow is our Stake conference, which is held at the Brisbane City Hall!! It seems like only a month ago I went to the last stake conference, which was in my final transfer in the city. That seems like yesterday.
I love you all and I hope you have a great week. Stay busy and stay focused! Take care.
Elder J. Colton Ladd
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