Our baptismal date is progressing steadily! She came to church on Sunday and also came to Institute Tuesday evening. She has made many friends with the members at church now. When we give her scriptures to read, she spends hours studying them. Yesterday, we shared with her 2 Nephi 31:20: "Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." The usage of the word "feasting" rang true, especially with her.
Following Emails last P-day, we had to go directly back home --- the other missionaries in our flat needed assistance bringing back a few bags of rice back home--- so there isn't much to note there. The most eventful occurrence of the week was on Thursday evening. A few weeks prior, my companion and I had the idea to create a Sports night. During my time in the office I had some opportunities to work with the part-time senior couple helping with the Chinese program as they collected information from people involved with the Chinese program in Melbourne, which expanded rapidly in 2012 after the creation of a branch there. As they researched the feasibility of a branch here in Brisbane, I was privileged to learn a little about some things done in Melbourne with great success. One of these is sports nights. At the beginning of my mission, there were sports nights being held at Eight Mile Plains, but these had minimal attendance, because of the inconvenience of the EMP chapel. The Kangaroo Point chapel, however, is much more convenient, so my companion and I thought, why don't we try to start a Sports night here? And we did! With as much success as we had hoped for. The attendance was about 25, about 10 members from River Terrace, 6 from Eight Mile Plains, and the rest being investigators. We had basketball, ping pong, and board games. As missionaries, we remain in our proselyting clothes and do not participate in the sports; our purpose is to facilitate 1) fellowship between members and investigators; 2) referrals of members' and investigators' friends; and 3) member-present lessons.
We held a conference call yesterday with the missionaries from eight mile plains, river terrace, and brisbane wards to give further training and guidance in preparation for Sports night this Thursday. We have the chapel booked for the rest of the year.
On Saturday, I performed the baptism for a Japanese investigator taught by the Chinese sisters now in Brisbane ward. She comes to English class every week, and she asked the sisters if I would be able to perform the baptism for her. I was happy to help, and later on Sunday I helped with her confirmation as well.
The other major event of the week was that I have a mini missionary with me!! He is the first-ever Chinese missionary to both serve out of the Chinese program (he is a member in Eight Mile Plains), and in the Chinese program (No Chinese missionary has had a mini-missionary before, because they don't speak Chinese). He was baptized a year ago in Eight Mile Plains, and has received the Melchizedek priesthood and currently serves as the Second Counselor in the Elders Quorum in Eight Mile Plains. This means he is a very unique mini-missionary in many ways. Generally, mini-missionaries are young priest- or laurel-age young men and women, but he is in his 20s, a convert, a university student, with his own job, car, sharehouse, etc. He arrived last Saturday, and will remain with us until this Friday.
On Sunday, our miracle was that we had 4 progressing investigators at church! This is the highest we have had yet, and we are excited. Our goal is to have 5 baptisms in July. Keep my in your prayers!
Elder J. Colton Ladd
yohoo, thanks for those lovely comments on me. You are such a good example, although you look strict and solemn, after all those formed me such a image about our missionary work. I still remember when we had our inspection, AP Elder Choi said he choose Elder Ladd and Han is because they are the best. Now I really know, time will tell.
ReplyDelete