Sunday, March 24, 2013

3-25


HELLO EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

I hope you're all doing FANTASTIC! this week was so much fun!!!!! ELDER DAVIES IS THE MAN! hahaha. He's a total clown all the time and he'll smash people at the bus stop and make them feel terrible about everything hahaha. it's too much fun. I keep laughing all the time. This week, when he sat down by a pentacostal, he pulled out his bible and started smashing him :) hahahahaha. it was too much fun. hahaha. I'm sure he'll be a great leader in the future. he knows the scriptures well enough and he's fluent in both languages. plus he's super charismatic with eveybody. The only thing is that he's super ADD hahahaha.  :) anything can distract the kid :)

Well this week, we had SO many appointments fall through on us. Everybody was shocked that we had SO MANY FALL THROUGH! it was kinda ridiculous. Over half of them fell through and so we're going to keep finding. fortunately we were blessed with enough appointments that the nubmers didn't show that our gezi's had been feng-ed. hahahaha :) so we reported numbers and it was all good. We would've had some crazy numbers had we had all of them go through :) Elder davies can find so many appointments so easily. I don't even have to work hard, but because of pride I won't let him show me up so I work super hard. I think this was good for me for the last bit of my mission to work super duper hard for the last bit. unfortunately both of us suspect that this will only be a temporary companionship. Two new chinese come in and Elder Bellingham and I are probably going to train them.... one is from the philipines and one is from china :) JIA YOU JIA YOU JIA YOU! I want the chinese guy so I can improve my chinese. My chinese is terrible still :P

Also this week, we were teaching a lesson in one of the malls called garden city. halfway through the lesson it started to rain like NO OTHER! I would attach pictures, but I looked at them and they don't really do it any justice, so I'll attach other pictures :) IT WAS INSANE!!!!!!!! :) walking out for three seconds got us SOAKING WET! hahahaha. we hadn't brought our umbrellas becasue we didn't think it was going to rain at all because of hte clear blue skies, but I guess we were wrong. We got our umbrellas eventually though :) then it stopped raining hahahahaha. I'll show you the video of it when I get home :) NOT TRUNKY!

So we also teach lessons at mcdonalsd (WORST TEACHING ENVIRONMENT EVER!!!!!!) all the time, and it's funny because one time there were SIX missionaries in mcdonalds all at the same time. I think president bought us an office so we can start teaching there instead... I'm going to have to sacrifice a bit of our P-day to teach a lesson. one of our investigators just texted :( GAHHHHHH I LOVE PDAY!!!!! :(

OK. back to our stories. what else happened...... we went to this investigators house and they wanted to keep feeding us hahahahaha. ti was so funny. it's a house of 9 taiwanese people all living together and they're all trying to learn english so we teach them the discussions and make them do things and hopefully one of them will catch on and ask more questions. there's one that was super interested in church, but we're not sure how that's going to go... we haven't had a chance to meet up with her too much... we'll see :) hahahahaha

ALSO!!! All of my investigators are studying medicine, biomed, sports science, or something to do with that. I think it's because God keeps putting people like that in front of me....... they always say that they believe in science and then I tell them that youc an believe both :) and they're like WHAT!?!?!??! AND YEAH!!!!!!! we get their number. the only problem is that a lot of them are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO smart. it's ridiculous how smart they are (there's this malaysian guy accross from me that I've talked to a million times and he had me explain to him what his pancrease is hahahaha. he wasn't interested in the church sadly, but we'll weasle our way into his heart :)

Well I'll explain the pictures for now.

This first one is of us at this one taiwanese house. this one actually has 7 taiwanese peopel in it. it's so funny. Daniel invited us over to his house ( I DON"T EVEN KNOW WHY!!!) and we went, he welcomed us and then took a shower...... so we sat their, then his housemates started feeding us, and we felt super awkward.... GAH!!!!!!!!!!! no good. hahahaha. anyway, we taught four different people every time we go by their house so we don't have a single new investigator there. just four potentials. GAH SO FRUSTRATING!!!!

The second was betty. she found out that it was Elder davies birthday on friday and that's why :) She just wished him a happy birthday. isn't she the coolest? yeah... she is.

Finally is breakfast at bishops :)

WELLL I LOOOOOVE YOU ALLLLLLL! :) I'm glad you've forgotten the old me and now think I'm super cool. I'm still a bit the same, but I feel like the Lord has shaped me a lot in the past two years :)

We have an awesome investigator that's SUPER DUPER Smart, and she knows it's ALLL TRUE! she knows it and she can feel it. the only thing that's holding her back was her family.  :( I want to help so much overcome that, but I just have to let her find things out for herself and overcome it. I don't know what suggestions to make because yeah.... maybe mom could help :) I haven't run into these issues before in my mission. they've been pretty straightforward with concerns :)

WELL I LOVE YOU ALLLL!!! :)

Hope your'e all doing well. evidently registrations are coming up O.o

Elder Chen



Monday, March 18, 2013

3-18


HALLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's Preparation day down here in Brisbane and it's SUPER HOT!!!! OH MY GOODNESS! I think I'm going to pass out from the heat hahahahahaha. yesterday was SOOO hot. I gave elder Bellingham one of my suits and after putting it on for a few seconds he started sweating like there was no tomorrow hahahahaha. it was too funny. but we wore suits ALLL day hahahahaha.

OH MY GOODNESS! Elder Davies is THE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahahaha. he's SOOOOOOOO cool. hahaha. he's such a clown. A lot of the time, he totally acts like he's super dumb or slow, but he's got a super quick brain hahaha. He's so bold when he talks to people. This week, we were just talking to everybody we saw and it was so funny. hahahaha.

One time, we were talking to this one guy and he was like: I don't believe in Jesus. Elder Davies was like: HAHAHAHAHA PERFECT!!!!!! That's what missionaries are for! We help you believe in Jesus!... "I don't want to..." "PERFECT!!!! We help people want to believe in Jesus!!!" "I'm not interested" "PERFECT!!!!! We help people get interested" BAHAHA. it's kinda funny but sometimes I'm worried that he'll offend someobdy or something hahahaha. it hasn't happened yet.  He is the first companion that I've had that has been able to match me with potentials hahaha. Between the two of us, this week, we got 56 potentials hahahaha. HE IS SOOOOOOO crazy. hahaha. too bad he went to lone peak. Timpview would have been way cooler.

SO one of the things that was funny this week was that Elder Lee kept coming home and telling me how much he loved this investigator and how solid they were. the fun thing is that I gave him that investigator because he hadn't baptized for SOOO long. and I already knew all those things. but I listen anyway hahahaha. it's too funny. hahaha.  Now in our area, we've kinda dropped most of our investigators so we get to out and find for a while. :) I LOVE FINDING! especially if we get to compete. against other people. :) I know we shouldn't be very competitive, but I can't help it :) hahahaha. I'll work on that later hahahaha jia you!!!!! :)

Also this week, we taught this one guangzhou guy and he's SOOOO funny. We were worried about his orientation because he said: "I think if you took off your shirt, you would look very muscular." hahahahaha oh no! but he's fine! his brother has been going to so many different churches because he doesn't know which one is true, but he likes the feeling at church and likes hearing al the many different stories that they share in church. He wasn't able to come to church this last week because he had to study for some exams, but hopefully next week we'll be able to catch him :) hahahaha. he's the man.

Alright. I'll explain the pictures for now: first of all picture 1 is of Elder Bellingham, Elder Hadfield, and I. :) These are my FAVOURITE MISSIONARIES! Now Elder davies is too, but he's taking the pictures. :) hahahaha.

This is elder Sison! He's funny. He's like my little philipino brother. hahahahaha. everybody here geusses that I'm from the philipines, but I'm not, but they guess it anyway. hahahaha. Now elder davies always telles people that I actually am from the philipines. he thinks it's funny hahahahahahahahahahaha.

This is macca's I don't like it. it's kinda gross. there was too much nasty. don't worry, we usually don't eat it, but this time we did because we had a really good day and elder bellingham was feelingl ike it. so I got two burgers and put them together and ate it.... it was kinda gross.

Glasses with Elder Davies and taylor (one of our recent converts)  I look like harry potter. anyway. also, I noticed that that was the day I had actually decided to grease my hair :) hahahahaha yuck

and this is betty's signature for her baptismal form. isn't it the COOLEST!!?!?!?!?!??!?!!

Next is elder bellingham and elder Lee on the buss on the way to pday. he stole my glasses

and finally elder Davies and I :) hahahaha. he's THE FUNNIEST!

ANYWAY! that was my week. I hope you had a fantastic week as well!!!! last week was a bit shot because we had to sacrifice a bit of pday to do a bit of teaching of english class hahahahahahah. YEAH BOI!!!!! We had like 50 people going to english class for one class. it's too funny. JIA YOU! we don't have enough missionaries to cover that many people so we have to go and call out some of the members to come and help us teach it. It's so funny because I'm becoming super critical of all the peoples english all around us and it's super funny hahahahaha. Sometimes, there won't be a really big error and then I'll try to help them because the more I correct them, the better their english is. :) hahaha

Well this week, we had a crazy awesome experience. during one of our lessons, we had planned on teaching it in the library, but the library closed so we taught it in the food court. the only problem is that it's super loud and not very good for the spirit to come in and teach as well. so we were kinda really depressed, but it worked out really well!!!! Half-way through the lesson, he started asking crazy good questions and I felt that the spirit was testifying to him regardless of the surroundings. The Lord will prepare those He wants to prepare in His own fashion. I know that the environment is a very important aspect of teaching, but if God wants the spirit to be there, it WILL be there!

I learned a lot from that experience. rather than depending on our environments to give us the spirit, we must be constantly preparing ourselves to listen to and admit that it is ALWAYS there! WE've ben promised that it'll always be with us, but we need to do things that can justify it's presence in our lives.  There are many situations wehre id idn't think I'd have a good spirit with me, rather a spirit of contention, but when I calm myself down and decide to listen to them and love them by sharing my testimony with them,  I know that I can drive awawy that spirit of contention and keep the spirit of the Lord with me!

This week, there was also something else really crazy cool that I learned.  We were discussing the council in heaven and I realized that it's not just a concept that existed before. it is a concept that is happening now. Satan would that we be 100% perfect or we get punished. He wants us to dwell on all our little imperfections and let them eat away at us.  Christ knows that there will be errors in our lives. that we'll not be 100% perfect. which is why he made away for us to get out of our imperfections via ATONEMENT!!!! oh. I wish I could type longer, but I'm out of time :( sorry. ahhaahaha.

Love you all!

Keep up the good work!

Elder Chen







Wednesday, March 13, 2013

3-12







HALLO!!!! as you can probably tell by the late update, we just had transfers!!!! :D hahahaha It was kinda boring because there weren't too many changes. I think President wanted to infuse Eight Mile Plains with more energy so Elder Bellingham (my MTC companion) Elder Hadfield, and I are now all in Eight mile plains hahahahahah. it's exciting! we're going to smash it. well... we had two baptisms this week. Betty Fu and Cynthia Chu! :) I'll attach the picture of the baptism later hopefully I'll have time to do it :) hahahahahahahaha

ALRIGHT! SO my new companion is!!! DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!! ELDER DAVIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA. he's a hunxue taiwan american. his chinese is THE MAN because he was born and raised in taiwan and he can speak taiwanese. HE is the GREATEST! hahaha. I'm so excited about working with him. (now I sound like verina's email :P hahahaha) ANyway. he went to Lone Peak for high school so he knows a lot of the people I kenw before my mission. haha unfortunately, we just dropped most of our investigators last week. so we'll be finding a lot :) hahahahaha. YEH!!!!!! the reason we dropped two of them is just because they got BAPTIZE YEH!!!!!! I was super duper excited about their baptisms hahahaha.

The Library keeps announcing their english conversation class and it's really really loud and it's very bothersome.... So I'm going to talk about it while theyr'e announcing it because Ic an't focus on anything else :) hahahahahahaha

OK! So we have this super duper cool investigator named KP (Kangaroo Point) JUUUST kidding. anyway. SHE IS CRAZY COOL!!!!!! she's going to medical school here in australia to become a cardiothoracic surgeon and is the smartest person i've ever met.haha. it's funny sometimes because she'll talk about medicine and I'll remember when she says it, but I'll just pretend like I have no idea what's going on hahahahahaha FOCUS ON MISSION :) YEH!!! Everybody here thinks I'm like a high school student (somebody guessed that i was 16 this week by the way) ANYWAY. she's super nice and gets along with everybody in the ward super well. She keeps asking all these crazy in depth/detailed questions about the scriptures that she notices as she reads.  I don't know if she'll get baptized but I'm hoping! She's such an awesome person and she'd make a fantastic member. all the members here already love her. All she needs to do is figure it out for herself. have an experience on her own and I know that God will give it to her eventually. :) JIA YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PS. my vietnamese is TERRIBLE hahahahahahahaha. oh. she's vietnamese by thew ay. And her hyperobservance of the scriptures is crazy weird.

Well, last week, we also gave away our most progressing investigator to the other elders because I felt bad for them. One of the Elders hasn't baptized for the past six months and I really wanted him to get back up on his feet. he had no investigators so I gave him one of our investigators named Jane. (you can't tell him this by the way) well. she's on date to be baptized next week and she's FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She went back to china for a little bit and it was so funny because wehn she came back, she immmediately texted mea nd asked me when I'd be able to help her come to church hahahaha. She's fantastic. HOWEVER! Her nick name is Da long ge! hahahahaha. Big dragon brother. She acts like it all the time :) hahahahaha. She'll always offer to help people and give people umbrellas. she's really talented at drawing as well. One of the things that I noticed was that she has a lot of opposition when she comes to church.  Her land lord is very active in another church and keeps pressuring her to go with her, but she doesn't really like that church. :)

This week, I gained a greater testimony of how the spirit does this work rather than me. I know that I'm not the best missionary out int he field, but God can make up for all of the flaws that I have!!! He takes care of me and makes sure that i don't make massive mistakes :) hahahahahaha.  As I was studying this week, I started reading more out of the gospels. I haven't read through them as thoroughly as I would have wanted so I decided to do it again. in correlation with the book of mormon. It's really hard and confusing to match teh two up sometimes but it really helps me understand so much.  Last week, I started on my search for in depth lesson plans about every topic and it's SOOO crazy hahahaha. Just the first principle has SOOO many different scriptures.  From all of them, The biggest thing that I learned is that God really does love all of us!!! He loves us to an extent that I don't think we can fully comprehend. I love it and I can most definitely feel it in my life.  I've just had to look for it.

Thank you so much for everything that you do for me! :) hahahahaha LOVE YOU ALL LOTS AND LOTS!!!!

in pigeon english it is called Me likem yu plenty plenty. hahaha hahaha.

Love Elder Chen


Friday, March 8, 2013

3-4


HELLO!!! well it was a pretty short week filled with not many exciting things. there were two baptisms on saturday and stuff. evidently new scriptures are coming out (which is all we're talking about :)) and yeah.... that was about it. I think I emailed you just a few days ago :P hhahahaha.

OI HOWEVER! I just Contacted this one girl who is EXACTLY like me!!! it's kinda really creepy. hahahahahaha. When we teach her, I know EXACTLY what her concerns are going to be because they're the exact same things that I would have said. it's kinda weird. She's super smart and always has these crazy questions about little details that I have to research and stuff. it's crazy. anyway. she's super cool and her parents are buddhist/christian. we taught her the word of wisdom and she was totally down with it because her mom makes her follow the word of wisdom down to the tea hahaha. it's fantastic! So she doesn't have any problems with the commandments, she just has to start believing it. If she's as stubborn as i am, it'll take a really long time :P hahahahahaha

Also this week, we met with this guy named Frank! He's SOOOOO cool. We went by his house and he told us that it wasn't a good time because his fangdong was about to drop in to collect rent and stuff (it sounds like a publican for some reason) so he told us to come back when he called. and he called right when his house lord left hahaha. he's super nice but I'm not sure how far into the gospel he's going to end up. he has a lot of preconcieved things about us and we're helping him understand a bit more, but he doesn't let go of a lot of concepts that his friends tell him. It's kinda frustrating because his friends have told him so many bad things and that's what he believes :(

We also discovered that most every church in this area is super scared of us :P hahaha. there's a church called the logos church, and we talked to one of their members and wanted just to talk with them and they wouldn't talk to us... :( misunderstanding is the father of fear. I just wish people could understand. I didn't want to bash their doctrine or scriptures or anything, I just wanted to talk and kinda understand what their church did and then they totally ignored us.

haha oh yeah. funny missionary experience from one of our ward members: He's a very elderly gentleman and one time, he sat down at the bus stop and decided to talk to a young bloke sitting next to him and share the gospel. he said "Hi, how are you?" and the young man turned to him and said: "Good, I'm evangalizing right now, would you like to come to church?" bahahahahahaha. our member just said: "I was just about to invite you to church. Have you ever read the Book of mormon?" bahahahahahaha. I LOVE OLD PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also this week, one of the people baptized's father is a malaysian dude who can speak like a million different languages. It was pretty awesome talking to him. he can speak taiwanese as well. Who would have thought :p.  evidently lots of fujien people move over to malaysia and stay there forever :) hahahaha :) YAY!!!!!!!

Well, love you all! sorry for the short email. not much happened except it's been raining down here for the past two weeks and it's not stopping.  asians don't like the rain so they cancel our appointments. yeah..... Oh well :) it's ok. we still love them. and the rain. and australia.... kinda :P hahaha. just kidding. it's a great place when I'm not getting skin cancer :P

LOVE YOU ALL LOTS AND LOTS!!!!

Elder Chen