Mar 12 2013

I'm writing on a Tuesday this week because it's transfers again already! this past transfer went by very quickly. The whole mission goes by frighteningly quickly, in fact. It's stressful in some ways -- I've been out here more than a 1/4 of my mission and I still feel fresh out of the MTC! Yikes.

I didn't go to transfer meeting because I'm not being transfered, so consquently I'm not sure what's happening in the mission. I'll probably have to explain it all next week. What I do know is that our whole district is staying the same, which we are all very excited about. I really enjoy my companion and the area right now, and I'm having success which makes it even better. In other news, this transfer we will be getting 30 new missionaries at once -- the surge of missionaries following the announcement at General Conference last year has finally hit us, as it has hit other missions around the world. 10 or so new areas will be opening up to accomodate the huge influx. I wonder what the next transfer will be like? Unfortunately, none of the new missionaries this transfer are Chinese, but hopefully there will be some soon -- later this year about half of all the Chinese missionaries all go home at the same time.

Anyways: We had two more baptisms!!

The investigators:

They were found several transfers ago by via referral from a referral. A man was GQ'd who later referred another man, who refered us to the investigators. It's a single mother from Taiwan and her children: a son, age 12; a daughter, age 10 (the two baptisms we've had so far); a daughter, age 3 1/2; and a son, age 2 1/2. The mother and the father are divorced, we do not know to much about that situation because the father lives somewhere else in Australia.

Teaching the family was and is an adventure. First of all, there was an interesting situation regarding their location: they live near the boundaries of my last area, Eight Mile Plains, and our intention was originally to pass them there, but ultimately they remained with us because the mother wants to come to Brisbane Ward and not any other ward. I think it probably has something to do with the perspective of any asian parent: only the best for her children. She sends her children to the best schools in the area, and so I think she has the impression that Brisbane ward is the best ward in the area because the chapel is right next to the temple on Kangaroo Point. Consequently, she wants to go to Brisbane ward and not any other ward. So anyways, to teach, we would have to travel 30 to 45 minutes by bus and walk 10 minutes to get there. Typically we would teach them on saturdays or on thursday afternoons.

Teaching children is exhausting. I think I've had a glimpse of what raising kids will be like in the future. I've learned one thing: the best way to teach them is if they know that you love them. Even if in lessons they may be distracted, complaining, confused, or anything else, if they know that you love them and are there for them, they pay attention to what you say and how you act.

The oldest son in particularly helped me to learn this. There were times when the mom confiscated his computer because he was spending too much time playing video games and it was becoming a real issue, and as a result he threw a fit. We came to teach not long after and he had shut himself in his room, refusing to let us open the door -- the mother opened it with the key but we had to push it open because he was holding it closed. At that point, emotions of being upset and being at that stage of life overwhelmed him, and he would not talk to us because he was tearing up and did not want us to see. So we let him know we loved him and just wanted to help, and let him have time alone to recover. A few minutes later, he was with us in the lesson again. From that point on, his behavior in the family improved considerably.

The mother was not baptized at the same time because she was hesitant, but did not want us to delay the baptisms of her children. She has her own concerns we will try to find out and resolve in the future.

The baptism:

We had one speaker, the wife of the bishop of Brisbane ward, who is also the sunday school teacher of the oldest son. We had the whole family with the Bishops family the monday before to teach them how to have family home evening, that went very well -- the bishop and his wife helped a ton in fellowshipping the family. Then we had the baptism, performed by my companion. I confirmed them and gave them the gift of the Holy Ghost in sacrament meeting the next day. Fancy that, we baptized in a ward we're not even assigned to! haha.

That was the best part of the week by far. Something else notable was that we set another baptismal date for the 30th of March, with that former investigator I mentioned a week or two ago! He's doing well.

I'm going to end it here this week because I want to makes sure to have time to post the pictures I meant to post last week, as well as the ones from this week.

Take care everyone!

Elder J. Colton Ladd