7/16/12

Good morning from the Gold Coast :D. If you look of Surfer's Paradise, that's where I am. :) YEH! it's such a great area, you're so jealous. hahaha, the only bad thing is that It's winter right now and it was raining for the past week. hahaha.  We met some tourists from America the other day, and they were really sad that the weather was so poor when they were here. I thought it was great because tracting was so much fun. There were more people at home and they were all bored, so we got to see people. Thank goodness I don't have to tract too much though. Being a chinese missionary is the greatest thing in the world. We're so spoiled in this mission.

 

For example: The whole zone is our area :) haha, so we can go anywhere in the zone as long as there is a chinese person to be taught. SO we've been traveling HEAPS to get out to our investigators :P.  Also, we usually have limited Kilometer allotments telling us how many K's we can use up before we have to stop using the car, but since we're chinese, we only have to call the office, and let them know that we're over K's, and then they'll give us more :) yeh. hahaha, so we're basically like the AP's in that we have nigh unto unlimited K's, however, they use many many more than we do. the other week, they had to drive up to the Northern Zones to give a training, and they drove for 2 days to get up there, and then flew back down into brisbane. That's how people usually get up and back from the northern zone, but they needed to bring a car up there. hahaha.

 

Well, a fun fact about one of the areas in our district is that they're so far south that they are in New South Wales, not Queensland anymore. hahaha, SO sometimes, we have to worry about the time difference. Queensland doesn't believe in daylight savings, but New South Wales does. SO sometimes, we'll call them and they'll not be awake, or they'll be asleep already because they're so off our time hahaha.  it's funny. We only get to see them maybe three times a transfer. They only come up for special trainings and zone conferences.  Not many people to trade-offs with them sadly, but I think I'll do a tradeoff with them soon, because they're struggling a bit :(.

 

One of the Elders from that area is so funny because they just got a new Chinese investigator, but since they're a three hours drive away from us, we just told them to meet with her.  Everytime I call them, they always ask for new chinese phrases and stuff to say to them. Last time, they asked me to teach them to say "please" hahaha.  I told them that it was Qing, but when I spelled it for them, they were so confused because of the Q, and yeah... it was a long conversation on the phone. hahaha.  anyway, I decided to give them a little book that could help them learn chinese for their investigator and it really helped them with her. They're hoping to set a baptismal date with her this week! YEH!!! CHINESE PEOPLE!  Their area is pretty rough, and I was looking back at their numbers and this chinese woman is the first new investigator they've had since march :( NOOOOOO. The funny thing ist hat we get more referrals from their ward than from our own ward :P

 

There's a sister from that area who is a fireball! it's crazy. Everytime she leaves there and comes up to gold coast, she calls us and is really excited. I think it's the funniest thing. ElderChen doesn't ever want to answer the phone because she's so excited and doesn't really listen to what we say. This is how the conversation goes basically:

"Elder Chen! the Sister is calling! You answer the phone!"

 

"Hello, this is Elder Chen speaking"

 

"HELLO ELDER CHEN!!!!! I KNEW IT"D BE YOU (both of us are Elder Chen... :)) I HAVE ANOTHER REFERRAL!!!!!!!!"

"Oh grea...."

 

"YES IT IS WONDERFUL! HER NAME IS...."

And then we find out that it's a referral she's already given to us a few times hahahaha. We've gotten "Linda"s phone number four times from her. hahaha.  Linda is evidently a sister from the philipines that lived in taiwan and speaks Chinese and yeah.... hahaha. I haven't spoken to her yet, but we'll keep trying to call her.

 

Jeff looks like usual skux Delux.  And he's still wearing those really ugly pants :P hahaha. It's fine though because now we all wear lava lava's in the flat. It's actually quite nice. Sadly, they look somewhat similar to jeff's pants :P hahaha.  Mine is purple with flowers on it. I'm going to have to get more lava lava's, but the islanders just give them to me hahaha. yeh! LAVA LAVA! I got a green one, but then gave it away because they didn't have one, and I felt bad for them... wow... weird tangent. I'll get you all lava lava's. For some reason the Islander culture has taken over Australia... hrm.

 

Sister chen is a goal smashing, training, baptizing, fireball Missionary with no fears! I love reading her emails. She's too funny. She makes the mission sound like the best place ever. And it is. But Australia is better than Taiwan :P huzzah! just kidding. All our baptisms are from taiwan hahahaha.  YEH! You should thank Sister chen for preparing them for us :) hahaha.

 

Verina it looks like you're laughing, but trying not to laugh in all the pictures... which makes me want to laugh. I like it. Laughing is good for you. I was told by an investigator that when you laugh, it should add a few more years onto your life... therefore, it equals out drinking tea.... NOOOOOO. it does NOT! Laugh and DON"T DRINK TEA YOU FOB!!!!! ok... it was a hilarious meeting.  We kept laughing and he told us that since he laughed so much, he could now go and drink a cup of tea. he hadn't drunk tea for SOOO long and we were so proud of him :(

 

Jon is the MAN! hahaha.  I looked at that picture and was like: what in the world, what a skux guy with a nice shirt and beautiful tie. hahaha. Go and protect verina! I hope you're doing good in school. Thank goodness I get home about the same time as you turn sixteen. I'm going to have to keep the girls off of you for your mission. :P Keep up the good work! Everything we do a lot of work, and the best part is that we don't do anything unless we feel happy and are having fun :) if we're not having fun, then we pray and then do things to make it fun. For example. Tracting. If we tract for a long time without any potential, we'll start singing between the houses and hope somebody pokes their head out of a window or something :P hahahaha, ok, it might be a bad idea, but I have now sung "I am a child of God" more than any primary child! YEH... it's the only one we can think of when we're tracting hahaha. ( I only have to tract on trade-offs thank the heavens)

 

oh  yeah, so the pictures are of some of the chinese kids we're teaching. The two kids are both from Taiwan and they are the best! the whole group is mostly from Shanghai, everybody on my right in the other picture is from Shanghai, the two on my left are from sichuan, and then the far left two are the taiwanese boys again.

 

The funny thing about this group is that it's only half of one of the six groups coming through O.o. hahaha.  It's really hard to work with them because they're all really noisy and rich and stuff.  Most of the time, they don't want to sit down, so we have to play games with them until they're really tired, and when they're not tired, they're pretty good.  One night, when we were at their home, we decided to play NINJA DESTRUCTION! they LOVE the game. They read this comic called naruto which is all about ninjas and it's so funny. Whenever they jump into a stance, they go into a funny pose that they say is from the comic. hahaha. Whenever they try to attack, they have to jump and spin around and it's really easy to avoid them, but I always let them kill me. :) I made sure every kid won at least once before we sat down and had a lesson :) oh, and we brought chocolate. :D YEH!

OK, so now why the Taiwanese boys are the best.  All the chinese boys are really rowdy and crazy, but the Taiwan boys are always really well behaved, and when we want to sit them all down to talk with them, they're always willing to listen :) and they sit down quietly, when we're talking to their host family, they sit patiently until the host family tells them that they can go.  It's a really big difference between them and the Chinese boys. There was one of the Taiwanese kids that was especially good. When he saw us he laughed a little bit, and he explained later that he had met with Missionaries in Taiwan, and LOVED the young men's program.  I have yet to meet someone who attended young men's and didn't like it... except for people in Utah.  People outside the church, when they see primary and the youth organizations LOVE it. The missionaries in Taiwan must have had a great effect on this boy because he's so attentive and is really good, and loves going to the activities with all the ward members.

GO VICKY... I Mean SISTER CHEN! I hear she's training! how crazy is that?! she's already training! YEH! She'd be AP if she wasn't a girl... maybe she will be AP anyway.

 

Meeting those Taiwan boys really helped me learn a lot of things. The ffirst thing that it taught me was reinforced a few weeks ago in Alma 16:16. The Lord is preparing people to recieve the word!!!  It's so true! The missionaries in Taiwan helped this boy become integrated into the church and helped him feel comfortable with the Young Men's program even if he wasn't too interested in Joining. When he came to Australia, he met missionaries again, met more members, and I know that that family has such a good effect on him.  The Lord is preparing him to do many things right now. He may not be baptized, but his heart is being conditioned to the word of God. How amazing is that?! I love being able to see these people, and ask them their expectations for meeting with us!  You can see the Lord's hand in their lives, preparing them for us! The field truly is white and ready to harvest! Lets go out there and HARVEST! YEAH! it's the funnest and most rewarding thing.  Most of the time, we don't even have to wait for the wheat to ripen. A servant of the Lord has already planted the seeds and the Lord has watered and cared for them.  All we have to do is sift the wheat from the tares and get to work!

I LOVE being out here. I love doing this work, and I love this area, maybe even more than the city :)

 

I love you all, and hope you all have the greatest week ever. and then a week better than that. It's all about the attitude.  Anything can be fun if you want it to be fun.

 

happy pioneer day soon :) I wish they celebrated that.... and July 4th... and Thanksgiving.... but it's ok. they celebrate the queens birthday :P hahahaha

 

Cheers,

Elder Chen

 

ps. You are all the best!!! :)