7.1.2013

HALLO!!!!! :)

 

First Item of business! ELDER KANG IS BAAAAAAAAACK!??!?!?!?! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

tha't super exciting. :) I'm sure he's a rockstar man! He was definitely a fantastic missionary. I'll see him soon :P NOT TRUNKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA

 

Alright. so the pictures are like this. This is elder hodgkinson and I. I in my beautiful pink boots(cleats) and him in my shirt :) hahahaha. that's the shirt you sent us. it was freeeeeeeezing.... so he wanted to borrow one of my long sleeves :) hahahaha all goods htough. We didn't expect sunshine coast to be htis cold. DId you know? Elder Hodgkinson is finishing his mission here and htis is the first area in which he was trained?! cool eh? and I'm finishing with Elder Tito. His older brother was one of the hcinese missionaries I lived with in the beginning of my mission! crazy eh?! anyway..... yeah. so Elder Hodgkinson fly home together so you'll meet him. He'as really good at being a missionary and very patient. and he's realy good at basket ball hence his height :) hahahaha he's funny....

 

and there's this homeless dude here and it smells a bit funky and elder tito and falevai keep pulling faces because it smells really bad :) hahahahahahahaha but we all feel bad for him... this is probably the most technological interaction he gets with stuff. oh well... maybe he'll hace the gospel soon in his life :) hahahaha

 

Alright... and President Langeland is now home :) I'm sad because I'll miss him, but I hear president Henderson is a very good man.... so no worries there :) hahahahaha all goods :)

 

I was talking to him on the phone on friday and saturday and he's really good.... he told me to call him when I touch down in Salt Lake Airport.... so I'm just going to send you his number incase I misplace it :P hahahahahaha

 

So..... if you could save that so I could borrow someones phone and call him... maybe you'll meet him beforehand... he told me that when I apply for medical schools to give him a call :) evidently he was the chairman of hte University of Utah Admissions committee.... :) hahahaha he said he knew kinda how they admited students and how the program worked :) yeah!!! If I remember correctly, vicky would alsways get angry at me because I was always way luckier than her :) hahahahaha true story :) I IS LUCKY!!!!!! God has really blessed me in my life :) hahahahahahahahahaha

 

Alright... another funny story for the week.... There are these two recent converts that wer baptized by ELder Taufa in an other ward, bu they come to our ward in search of him. they always ask for "mr Sexy" and the "african one" hahahahahahahahahahaha. IT was really disturbing so we called president and sister langeland and they said that we should just avoid interacting with them beacuse they seem to have a very bad history with misisonaries... it's not good at all..... and the worst par tis that: THEY ARE LIKE 70 YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  OOOOHHHHHHMAAAAAAHHHHHHGOOOODNESSSSSSSS

 

:) anyway

 

the missionaries here are really cool. at the leadership council they kept tlaking about how this is the first time in three years (since president has been here) that there has been this much energy up her ein the sunshine coast. usually only one or two areas are doing well and are excited fo rthe work, but this week, the whole zone did well and are on the rise. it's the first time that all of the areas have 1 baptismal date and so everybody is really excited for the sunshine coast. :) however, the hcinese program hasn't been doing too well lately.... unfortunately..... I'm sure they're working hard but I don' tknow... i tmust be in correlation with some of the semesters or something. I honestly cannot think... that is how much stink there is.... oh my goodnessssssssssss.... I HAVE A HEADACHE!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

ok. anyway... also... this week, we got assignemnts from heaps of the ward auxillliary leaders to do visits and find certain members that they havne't been able to locate And this week, we found out that the ward list isn't even updated. of the 20 people we were able to visit and confirm location 15 of them no longer live at that address and do not have a current forwarding address. we tracted all the houses around all of the visits na dnone of htem could tell us exactly where the people moved too...... oh miy gooondess.... this ward... :) hahahahahaha. and so we brought it to the ward clerk to update hte records thinking htat we were trying to help and then he told us that he was too busy to update the records... so we talked to bishop and then he referred us.... but I think thi sis just a test of faith to see how persistent we really are :) hahahahaha I"m really excited to see how many trials we've got in this area and we're going to smash them one by one. :) hahahhaa BRING IT AOUN!!!!! :) When trials are not an evidence of disobedience, it is a proof that God feels that you are prepared to grow. and going from what you are now to what God wants you to become takes stretching and pain.... :) like one of hte members in my wards said: "No Gain, no pain" bhahahahahaa :) but seriously.... what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

 

THis week, we met with one of ht emost fantastic investigators I've ever seen. She wasn't baptized and was dropped by the previous missionaries... I'm not sure why... so we went and visited her while we were in her area. ANYWAY she is FANTASTIC!!!!!! she was lutherane, but because of several indecent experiences she was disheartened and yeah. ANYWAY!! we started teaching her and she said that she feels happy around us because we'r ealways smiling. ANYWAY. We invited her (when she knows it's true) to be baptized. And we asked her if she would be willing to set a goal day in which she would be with her 3 kids. and she was like: Yeah... I'd like to know by wednesday :) htis week hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Elder Tito and I were like: OH............. :) hahahahaha. she's really good but we encouraged her to give it some time and thought and prayer and reading. :) SOOOOO yeah. that's how fantastic she is. she said that she'd like to research us before hand and ask us questions and so we let her ask us quesitons. she's really cool and she liked what we said and stuff so she's progressing really well. :) hahahahahahahahahahaha

 

ANyway! Keep up the good work! I started looking back and reviewing all of the notes I toke and revelations I recieved on my missiona nd 'm going to give a training on ittomorrow.... so... it's been a long journey :) hahah. I've learned so much and I still have so much to learn... I havne' teven scratched the surface..

 

 

I love you all :) and hope you're all doing FANTASTIC!!!!!!!! You're always in my prayers!

 

Love,

 

Elder Joseph Chen

 

I'll see you soon :)

6.25.2013

HELLO!!!!! :) hahahaha Hi family! :) how have you all been? :)

 

So this was a rather sad week, all things considered... President Langeland goes home On the 30 of June, and hte new mission president comes in and meets him for a few hours and then they're off and away :) hahaha so yeah... that's what's happening there... So I'm a little sad about it, but yeah... these things happen.... oh well. :) hahaha. we will miss them but then we'll be all goods.

 

Since it was a short week, pday on wednesday and all :) so last week, we just had a special training from president and sister langeland. it was really sad because it was basically a farewell. I won't be able to see them again :( sadly.... oh well. and then here are some pictures :) I think I sent you ap icture of the elevator. we have an office here for the stake president and we use it all the time for zone meetings and such :) hahaha it works really well and it's in a really convenient place. I wish the church put the church building in such a convenient place. it's pretty annoying getting investigators to church, but hte office is really easy because you can just get off the bus, walk across the street and go up two floors :) rather convenient. and some of our members didn't really know it was there until some of them had to get some blood drawn... saw the icon... hahahahahah oh too funny. :) hahahahaha. ANYWAY!

 

The next pictures should be of some kangaroos... after a lesson, we saw a bunch of htem in the field wandering around. it seems that htey like to do that... hahahaha. it's good. I like them.  They're really comon, but these were a lot more docile than usual. I got pretty close, but didn't want to maket them aggressive at all... so yea.... hahahahaha.

 

AND HTEN LAST PICTURES WITH PRESIDENT AND SISTER LANGELAND :( :( :( :( oh well... I will se ethem again.. I think president langeland will always be president to me no matter what his calling. I think he should go 70's.... :) he's hte man. ELder Henderson... the new mission president should be really good as well. :) hahahaha

 

Then the next pictures should be of our area... we were tracting and this is our area :) hahahah tada! I think it's a bit too remote for any chinese to come up here.... hahaha it's good though. I started laughing when I saw the area we were tracting... there is NOBODIES HEREEEEE! :) hahahaha. but it's a good amount of fun :) hahahahaha. we get to take pictures and stuff.

 

SO HOORAY!!!!!

 

haha. alright. so this week, (this is how disorganized the ward is) they ahd no speakers arranged for sacrament meetings.... sooooooo.... they called hte missionaries to fill up a long time. :) we had a lot of time to fill and elder tito wasn't really excited so he told me he'd take up 5 minutes and I'd have to finish the meeting. anywya. when I was talking, I kinda felt like I was just going and going and going. it was a really good feeling. I didn't really have to pause to think or anything. ANYWAY. After the talk, some of the members told me they enjoyed the talk (like normal... they always do that regardless of how good the talk was) BUT THEN people started inviting us over to dinner... nobody has invited the missionaries out to dinner in AGES in this ward.... but now they're inviting us! exciting huh? anyway....

 

The story continues! :) this week, as we were visiting members (because we don't know any of the members even though tito has already been here for 4 months) they all remembered the talk and we were recieving referals like CRAZY!!!!! hahaha. at one house we recieved 2 really good referalls that had already been to church and stuff... just none of hte missionaries had taught them. they were both families of 4 and I have NO idea why they haven't been contacted yet so we've got our work cut out for us this week.

 

:) It shows the power of humility :) hahahahaha oh my goodness. I love working with wards that are excited and willing to go out and work :) the referrals and missionary work havce been piling up in this ward for ages and there haven't been any misisonaries htat were willing to go out and contact them.  THey all focused on the misison standard of 14 hrs of finding, but didn't htink to look towards the area of the work where we can be most productive!!!!!! MEMBER MISSIONARY WORK!

 

it caused me to think a little bit aobut alll the things the church has announced and stuff. they wanted us to increase the rescue of hte one, and then there are thousands of missionaries comming out and smashing the world with the gospel!!! IT"S PERFECT! My role now is to establish the foundation for the next generation of missionaries in which SIster Chen will be one of the first!!!!! :)  MEMBERS ARE THE KEY!!! I had never realized that my whol emission because chinese missionaries only work with chinese people. all english speakers are referred to english missionaries in the area. we never had the opportunity to work with the members. now that I'm in this ward, I've started realizing its importance! OH MY GOSH! hahahahaha.

 

ANYWAY. I'm now off my soap box. During President Langeland's training he referred to the difference between transgression and sin, and I had already read that quote from Dallin H. Oaks about the difference between the two. :) it was simple, but it was really fun to see missionaries tyring to differentiate the two in very complicated ways! it just showed me how truly simple the gospel is!! :) hahahaha I LOVE IT SOOOO MUCH!!! :) simplicity is truly the way that we can know truth. the more simple somehting is... oh my goodness.  THE gospel is SOOOO simple, and true intelligence is being able to take anything and put it into simple terms... it's something that I've been striving for my whole mission. It's the best :) hahaha

 

YOU KNOW ELDER TIAN!? On the board it says he's fro the philipines.... :) hahaha we'll see. He looks really small and bald hahaha, I'm guessing his trainer will be Elder Davies or Elder Chen. I'm not sure who's training, but they're both really good missionaries. Elder Davies was my last companion in EMP and I learned so much from him... :) hahaha. He'll tell you that I'm his favourite companion, but htat's only because he hasn't served with the greatest of companions. I was supposed to trian elder chen. The zone leaders had called and everything, but another missionary requested him during hte dtransfers so yeah... he's really good. he's the misisonary I baptized 6 people in one transfer with. :) hahahaha. I'm sad I'll miss seeing him, but he's in good hands here. the chinese program is really good. :) I'm not sure what'll happen to it because Elder Bellingham, Me, Elder Tsai, Elder Lee, and Elder Lam are all going home, leaving a skeleton crew to maintain all the areas..... I think ELder Chen, Elder Davies, Elder Allan, Elder Johnson, and ELder Williams are all that's left of the chinese program after this transfer, and they're all rather new.... I just trained ELder Allan and ELder johnson... follow up trained elder williams and Elder Chen.... Elder Davies I was with for four weeks... they're good though.

 

Sorry my time is up... but keep up the good work!!!!! :) I love you all! and I hope you're all doing super duper wel!!!!! :)

 

Sincerely,

 

Elder Chen

6.19.2013

) HLALO

 

SORRY.... this is going to be short because we just barely got back from the temple and we're AGES away. We're in one of hte farthest areas in the mission. The Gladstone area (which is only 2hrs drive frome us).... yeah....... they have to take a plane to gladstone :) hahahahahahaha SOOOOOO FAR AWAY FROM CIVILIZATION! anyway... just went to the temple for the last time here in brisbane... it was strange. I don't htink it's hit me quite yet, cuz I'm still doing everything the same. My work is still the same.. I'm still talking to people that I feel like I'm going to help and stuff.. I don't think it has sunk in yet... I"ll let you know when it does though... :) hahahahahahaha

 

Though... We're all really tierd up here.... it's insanely exhausting how much work there is to do up here..... AND it's like a gaint retirement village. I tracted for 24 hrs last week, and everybody said they weren't interested.... it was an interesting experience... hard... funny... but hard. there are a lot of people interested in how I look chinese, sound American, but act like an islander :p hahahahahaha oh gosh.... One dude told m ethat we look healthy (my companion and I) and then asked us which pacific Island we're from :) hahahahahaha YES!!! I am get FAT and look like a fob!! :) hahaha

 

ANYWAY! One of hte funniest doors that we knocked on... I don't htink that the lady was too comfortable wit us at the door... but we tried it anyway and she keeped making htis awkward laugh-like thing where she would sound kinda like HEH HEH HEH HEEEEEEEEE. hahahahaha Elder Tito and I were trying to not laugh SOOOo hard it was ridiculous. :) hahahahaha oh my gosh.. :) hahahahaha and then she told us that she was anglican and she knew everything about the mormons and diddn't want to have anything to do with us... it was interesting... :) so we left. :)

 

People here are a lot more forward with their comments here as well.... so that was exciting hahahahahahahaha.  OH MY GOODNESS!!!! ANYWAY!

ALSO we were able to go to ward council for the first time in AGES!!!!!! The previous missionaries in this area seemed to have gotten absolutely nothing done. SO...... I'm going to try to set something up befor ehte next missionaries get to the area. It's really frustrating. At ward council... they were trying to implement a trade-offs system that the Area Presidency has had running this whole year..... so... they're on it 6 months late.... and they weren't sure about the logistics of it (I'm not sure that they needed to worry about that) so they were asking me what the program entitled and what we needed to do and wher ethe names came from.... OH MY GOSH!!!!! and then the relief society president wasn't cooperating at alll..... hahahahahaha. it was sooo funny. anyway. so while they were having their little disputes, I started doing work of my own bcause they weren't getting anywhere.... something about a reciept that the relief society president was supposed to cash in last year... but still hasn't even turned it in.... anyway. that's besides the point. the moral of the story is... while they were conversing in harsh tones, I was visiting with all of the members of the ward council one by one... discussing some of hte members of hteir quorums that may have been struggling and seeing who we could visit. Anybody that they thought were hard to find... and by the end o fhte night... I had compiled a rather decent list of people to visit and who to report to and what the call of action was.... I felt rahter productive and left happy. Then I talked to bishop and started discussing several of the other members of the ward with him. I actually don' know anybody... but It seems that previous missionaries had divided themselves away from the ward and hadn't actually interacted with the ward leaders... but that's all we can do here...... Australians are very stubborn and own't want to do anything however. they are VERY loyal people... so if you can get a way intotheir hearts.... :) BAM perfect. I think it'd be too easy to get into their homes if we had a member iviting us..... We have a really high rate of converting member referrals to baptisms because australians are so incredibly loyal. :) hahahaha it's perfect.

 

SO that was our week. lots of tracting..... and finding... I don't know that the missionaries here are a big fan of efficiency.  I was researching it to separate effectiveness and efficiency. the two are similar.... but they're also different. :) Tracting... yes it gives us finding time and we talk to people it is effective. the work is being done... but is it being done in an effecient manner? is every minute being used to its fullest ability? I realized that some people fill time with their plans.... but I've been trying to fill my plans with success.... it's out htere... you just gotta know where God wants you to be or what He wants you to do at a certain time....

 

anyway... the others want to go out and play some rugby... so sorry for the short email.... :) next pday will be in a bit... we havcne't had a monday pday for AGES. the first one because of transfers, then the queens birthday, then temple week, and next week, we havec special trianing on monday....... and a mid-transfer transfer meeting to prepare fo rhte new missio npresident :) hahahahaha

 

Love you all!!!!!!!

Elder Chen

6-11-13

HELLOOOOOOOOO from the sunshine coast!!!!!

ok! SO!!!! this is how the area is: The ward doens't know the elders.... There are no investigators.... Jehovah's Witnesses are EVERYWHERE... and WE FOUND TWO CHINESE FAMILIES!!!!!!! but neither of them say they want to join, but we'll work on it :).. hahaha.... faith....

OK! SO when I actually finally got to the flat... the bathroom was soooo gross.... so I spent a lunch cleaning the bathroom. and hten I spent dinner organizing the books and pamphlets... and then I spent the next lunch cleaning out the closet... and then I spent hte next dinner cleaning out the desks.... it wa sa long painful process... but im all finished now..... not yet actually, I still havec to clean the kitchen.... This is hte weirdest flat I've ver been in.... hahahaha. it's kinda creepy.... only the mian room light works and so we shower in the dark... dress in the dark, iron in the dark... it's interesting..... hahahaha. I'll send you a before an after picture of hte bathroom some time... I can't actually locate the picture on my camera so I guess you'll have to wait till next week to get it :P hahahaha. It's kinda really grosss..... the floor is all brown and nobody has cleaned off the calcination on the window for a million years.... and there was red stuff tooo.... AWWW MAAAA HEAD!!!!!

ANYWAY!!!! SO it was raining and we were tracting around in the area with no success and then we saw this chinese lady with a baby walking home so we went over and talked to her... she said she would be interested in learning... didn't know if she would want to join, but like that we were young and out on missions.... so we went and taught her. Her husband is a research guy for batteries or something.... and they don't speak any english so she was super excited when I came over and talked to her.  They're really nice and really easy to set up appointments with but we always want to catch the dad along with them.... so we always wait. :) hahahahahahahaha we hav eanother appointment with them on friday.... so we're going to be doing that... other than that we don't really havce that much going on..

President wants every companionship to baptize in june, and I set up 3 baptisms in other areas... but I don't know if I'll be able to baptize this month in this area.... Elder Tito is a new missionary..( Just trained) and so he' snot very familiar with the area and so we're starting from ground 0 here. I went through all the former investigators and part member families.... contacted them all and not many of them are interested in still meeting with missionaries.... so I went through all their investigators and it doesn't seem like we have much of a shot for a baptism in june or within this last transfer for that matter, but we're scrambling.  I guess I'm here to lay the foundation for other elders.... even though I havne't been an english missionary before, I think I'll be able to contribute at least a little bit to this area.... I started interacting with the Ward more... it seems that our ward mission leader doesn't come to church and avoids all contact with members..... we've visited his house and he always tells us that he's about to head out to do something and then leaves.... so... I decided to go straight for the leaders. (With bishop's permission of course) and so we've been in contact with all of them.  I think the ward hasn't had a very good interaction wtih misisonaries just wanting to squeeze referrals out of them all the time, so yeah........ so I just asked them if they knew of anybody htey wanted us to find, rescue or anything... they seemed pretty surprised because nobody has ever asked them to help I guess... so we'll start from there.

Bishop gave us a list of names to visit so we've been hunting them down. we'vce had contact with all of htem and have had lessons with all of them but one... and htat one jumps over the back fence whenever we get there.... so interesting experience there.... hahahahahaha

Whenever we knock on this door, the mom will answer and go back to get him... and then we'll se him jump over the fence o nthe other side hahahahahahahahahaha. it's sooooo funny. it was kinda embarrassing cuz I was trying not to laugh when she came back... I gues I just grinned the whole time....

Also... on sunday, some members saw me and thought I was a hcinese fob, and so they started speaking slowly to me and ennunciating heaps..... it was an odd day... very very odd. I just told them I was from utah, and htis one lady told me she was from draper... hahahaha. oh gosh... and yeah..... lots of RM's in this ward but htey've all gone inactive because they're all really big surfers. it's a really transient ward.

I'm just trying to figure out why I'm here.... so I can get through this with an objective in sight. If it's just laying a foundatio nfor later misisonaries, that's alright with me..  it seems that that was my mission from the start. I've opened so many areas and revived a few others... so I guess that was my calling... I haven't baptized too much but A lot of the people that I worked with got baptized later.  it's aninteresting misison and yeah... I don't know what it means for the rest of my life, but I'm sure God has a plan for me.

I've studied a lot about parables and Christ's ministry in Jerusalem recently, and There's ALWAYS a purpose in all things. hahahaha. There are a lot of aplications available to those who seek.  I realized that I was a bit erroneous in my attitude towards the mission in that I wanted it to be straightforward and obvious why things happened. I guess it's more of going and doing and trusting that God will show us His purposes in all things... The theory of intelligent design. It's all there. It's all for us. hahaha. It's our show. It's our time! it's SHOWTIME!! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa oh I thought that was funny. I don't know about you. but in all seriousness. Many of our investigators ask a lot of questions that are sometimes hard to figure out the answers to... but God always puts it in our mouths in the moment... and it teaches us! There are so many times that I've answered quesitons for investigators that also answer it for me!!!! It's too perfect to be a corollary of random chance.  LIke that, our lives sometimes aren't answered until the moment we need it the most. I may not need to understand all the things that are going on right now... but I'll know later... when I'm old... :)

SOrry for the short email... I had to run to the bathroom quickly... today, I'm going ot be playing rugby... and I hope it rains.. I'll take more pictures then. :) hahahahahah

I LOVE YOU ALLL!!!!! 

Elder Chen

6-4-13

HI GUYS!!!!!

 

I guess it is a new transfer now and i am currently in...... SUNSHINE COAST for my final transfer with my final companion. His name is Elder Tito.... He's from melbourne and he is THE MAN! hahaha. I'm really excited about spending htis last transfer with him :) hahahah. he's way cool. Well here's the thing with him. He's super duper smart because he is SUPER diligent and stuff. I've never met a misisonary like him. President pulled me out of hte Chinese program for this last transfer and now I'm ou tin the middle of nowhere. SUPER DUPER tired because I've been driving for hte past three hours and yeah..... so now I'm super far from any civilization... haha just kidding. I'm actually pretty close, but yeah... we'll see what happens. I actually still don't know the actual name of the area because it's never popped up on my radar Hahaha. :) it's interesting. hahaha. fun place to be rignt now, but there aren't that many chinese. President heard a rumor that there were a few chinese up here so he sent me here to figure it out. :) hahahaha. I'm not exactly sure how many there will be, but I hope there are going to be HEAPS AND HEAPS AND HEAPS :) otherwise I'll b rather bored here.

 

Anyway. I actually can't remember much of what has happened in the last week. I guess I'll explain the pictures: well I'm not actually sure which pictures I sent because it doesn't really work very well. I'm only kinda surviviing on this thing :P hahahaha. we'll see how it goes...

 

SO yeah... evidently there's a population of 22,000 here... that's a fun fact for this area... also.... hmmmm... I don't know. So yeah. Elder Tsai is also an english missionary right now. hahahaha :) OH MY GOSH!!! WE BOTH FINISH AS ENGLISH MISSIONARIES!!!!! I wish I had time to go through the book of mormon in chinese, but it doesn't look like I will have a chance to because I really don't have that much time hahahahaha :) oh well. IT'll be interesting. :) I asked him about hte area and it looks like we're going to be doing a lot of finding here :) hahahaha

 

Fun fact about this area: THERE ARE NO ASIANS!!!!!!!!! :) hahahahahahahaha

 

SO! I'm going to work my bum off in this area... I asked them about the area and there haven't been any baptisms here since five or six transfers ago, and I'm follow-up training Elder Tito. I'm really excited about it and stuff, but it looks a bit daunting since I only have 6 weeks left. I'm going to work my bum off, but gosh.... it'll be very interesting...... hahahahahaha. President pulled me aside for a special interview to let me know what's going on in the area.. Evidently he's heard reports that the leadership here isn't too supportive of the mission and he wanted me to come and report on 1: asians 2: The ward.... soooooooooo GOSH!!!!!! whatever.

 

OH YEAH! and did I mention that he gave us a full-time car?! I've never been an english missionary before!!! I DON"T KNOW HOW TO WORK LIKE AN ENGLISH MISSIONARY!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA. maybe we'll try and revolutionize the way missionaries work out here :) hahahahahaha. LOTS AND LOTS OF TRACTING and they don't really have any investigators.... yeah... oh well... we'll keep working.... :) gosh. I'm tired

 

So yeah.... :) also thanks all of you for all your birthday wishes!!!! :) I'm not exactly sure how much time I've got on here... because it doesn't really show me a clock.... I'm hoping I get an alert when it gets to a few minutes. Sorry I don't really have too much time on this compouter because we just got out of transfers and we had to come and drive for HOURS!!!!! :( hahahaha. so far away from brisbane. We're in such a strange area. We have a massive zone, but they're so far away from each other that it's pretty ridiculous!!!! :) hahahahaha A lot of the areas aren't even allowed to come to zone meeting. Bunderberg (in my district) is five hours away from our flat... O.o hahahahaha. they had to drive 7 hours to get to transfers and they had to pack all their bags because they got white washed. SO MANY areas in the mission got white washed hahahaha. It's pretty interesting. Because of all the isters ocoming into hte mission, we're not all sure where to put them, so they just replace eldres in the areas. This area doesn't like sisters though for some reason... so they put us in there.... Odd....

 

I love you all! thank you for all the happy birthday wishes!! and good luck with everything :)

 

Elder Chen

5-26-13

Hi family!!!

This week it is finals... so there are no chinese people out in the streets or anywhere hahahaha :) SO we talked to a lot of interesting apople. hahaha. Well yeah. there are so many strange people out in the world here :P hahahaha. it's too funny tooooo toooo funny. :) Most of the drunk people kinda like us, but there are a lot of them that really DON"T like us hahaha. It's ok though because most of the time we ignore them anyway. so it's fine.  Elder Tsai got blessed by a man with the gift of tongues so that was pretty exciting. Elder Bingham, Elder nelson and I were just watching and laughing... it was pretty funny. Elder Tsai is the man and he handled it pretty well so it was alright hahaha.  :) he's a very soft guy and isn't very aggressive at all so he is very godo in those situations.  He doesn't like to offend anybody :) hahahahaha

ALRIGHT! Shout-outs!!!! first of all

Well this week, there were a few intersting things that went down. We went to The Huang Family's house again to eat, and they KILLED A CHICKEN FOR US!!! hahaha. here's apicture of Brother Want cleaning the chicken for us! :) hahaha and then Sister huang cooked San Bei Ji!!!! SOOO DELICIOUS! but it was really spicy as well. ) but here's a picture of the chicken! :) hahaha

the other pictures are of the IOC (Isle of Capri) elders in our district. Elder Bingham's family always takes awkward pictures like that and so yeah... hahahahaha it's so funny. we call it the Bingham Family Foto! so the BFF hahahaha excuse my poor spelling. my chinese is poor as well. I have digressed in all things :) hahahahahaha

Also this is elder Curtis. He goes home in a week, but he's the MAN!!! he gave up his career to be on a mission. He was a professional ballerina. When I was on tradeoffs with him, he told me all about it. There are like four different levels in a ballet corp and he was a soloist.... soooo HE WAS REALLY GOOD! and he was on the national Australian Ballet corp and is super great. this is a picture of him and a swan we saw on the tradeoff hahaha. i took videos because it's a pretty cool area, but then yeah... :) hahahaha it was pretty good. I enjoyed all the different things that went down that day. We met with so many interesting people.

One of the people we met with on that day was a sister who is dating a member. here's the fun part. She's a professional Fighter and beats her boyfriend up sometimes ;) hahahahahaha but they're funny. one time they got in a fight and yeah.... hahahaha she won. ANYWAY! she's changing so she doesn't beat him up anymore :) she's really really nice and happy and bubbly. hahaha :)

AND for some reason, recently, I've given so many people my phone number and told them to call or text if they are interested (always leave something behind) and three people have called/texted!!! unfortunately, they're super duper busy with all their tests and exams and stuff so they won't be able to do anything for a while. there was one that is super duper humble and has felt like she hasn't had church in her life for too long, and so she wants to come back and had heard of mormons before but had never had a chance to ever take a look at a mormon church. Missionaries had come to her school before and talked to the student body, but yeah.... now she finally met missionaries. unfortunately, we can't actually teach her.... we have to give her to the other missionaries... :(

but yeah... time is running down, but love you all!!!!! Hope you have a great week!!!!

5-20-13

GOOD MORNING FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ok. so this is another week that was actually slow again. This area seems to be rather depressing during midterms and finals. we had a little bit of a break between the two seasons because they have a week between the last midterm and the first final.  It's really interesting. I don't really like the whole concept of tests here because it destroys our work :P hahaha. The students are all here to study and they don't like reading anything other than their materials or else they feel like they're wasting their time so they disappear for a few weeks and then reapear. :P hahaha it's interesting in this one. In EMP the people actually just lived in their houses and had emmigrated over :) hahaha. oh well. LOTS of working holiday visa people :P hahahahaha.

Though there WAS one really cool experience we had :) hahaha. it wasn't so much cool as it was funny. we were at the bus stop talking to random people one time and it was so funny because the bus stop is right next to a really nice bar restaurant thing so we'll usually avoid it when there are lots of people drinking there haha. Well this one time, there was a group of three gentlemen that were yelling "JEHOVAH'S!!" at us from the bar and so we decided that it wasn't a very good environment for us so we were going to hop on the next bus out of that area so we could keep finding. anyway. well the security guard came down and told us that one of the patrons wanted to have a word with us and said that it wouldn't be a problem because he was the security and would kick them out. so we went over to the window and started talking to them and it was really weird.... :) When we were talking with them, they just kept asking us about stuff like the word of wisdom and the law of chastity and stuff... it was interesting. :) hahahaha. and then they told us that they wanted to sign up for it, and we told them that they had to give up stuff... it was pretty funny hahahahahahaha. :) they were pretty cool. anyway... at the end, it turns out they were gay... soooo.. yep.... ok. the end

That was our finding story for this week. other than that, there are a looooooot of american pepole in this area! It's insane howmany of them there area hahahaha :)I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with all of them hahahaha. One day, I contacted 6 of them in a row. one from chicago, new york, new jersey, hawaii, etc. it was pretty fun. :) hahahaha  I'm still not used to the american accent

Also, I discovered that the pen that my recent convert gave me is SOOOOOO expensive!!! OH MY GOODNESS!!!! hahahaha I was like: THERE IS NO WAY!! hahaha :) so I'm just keeping it hidden. I have ink for it, but I don't think I'm Gaoji enough to use it yet :P hahaha. maybe when you're a doctor Jeff, you can go and use it. :)

Well this week, we met with a few working holiday visa people. mnostly from Japan. They all don't really have any interest in church but they want to practice english.... soo.... yeah. SO many japanese people here. the funnny thing is that they can't speak ANY english at all. hahahaha. Elder tsai set up a lesson with a japanese person and they were so confused the whole time hahahahaha. we tried our japanese on them and then they were like: OOOOOH  KIO KAI!!!!! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!! hahahahahahahahaha. :) it was so fun. anyway. Elder Tsai reacts sooo funny. when they say no to church he's feels so bad haha. He always feels like he was wasting some time whenever that happes and feels guilty and then works harder :) it's good. when someobdy is SOLID, he's sooooo happy and works even HARDER! he's the man.  I'm gong to have to develop such a hard work ethic like that ;)

 NExt week is interviews with president and I have to renew my temple recommend O.o OH I'm old hahahahahahahaha :) it'll be good.

Elder Chen