4-15

One last Hurrah!!!! :) hahaha. This is probably going to be my final area. I don't know. It seems like I might actually have the same thing happen to me as Sister Chen did and get transferred randomly :) I don't know. I'm thinking this will be where I finish. cross your fingers!!!! :D hahahaha. I love it! it's a good area. I still know a few of the members. lots of them have gotten married. actually, one of them got married to a chick from provo!!!! :) hahahaha. he's studying to become a Radiologist I think and he's really nice and usually takes the missionaries out for food, but hasn't recently cuz he got married two weeks ago.... sad day. he used to live with our ward msision leader, but now he's all alone with his wife. hahahaha. anyway. aren't you glad that you got to read that little story about ar andom member in our area? ok. the end.

Like I said, we were pretty slow this week. We have competitions as to who can find the most potentials in a certain amount of time and I always win :) YEH! PRIDEFUL! hahahahaha. But they all get referred for some odd reason.... hahahahahaha :) it's kinda sad that I don't get to teach them, but they are THE COOLEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD AND I WANT THEM TO GET BAPTIZED!!!! all of the referrals are given down to my last area :( I don't know why they didn't give me more referrals earlier.... :( oh well. it's ok though. I think One time, I was so sick of teaching and wanted to find and wished that I could just find for all the people. it seems that my wish has come true. :) i'm finding for all the other areas now. tooo many referrals

There is this one girl that I refered that i was SOOOo sad I had to refer. she was teh COOOOOLEST girl in the world. She told us that she was going throgha  pretty hard time in her life and wanted a bit of direction. She studies Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology which is pretty good. ANYWAY! We met with her really quickly and she kept asking question after question after question like: Can I become mormon if my parents aren't? How old do I have to be to beocme a missionary? haha, we just told her that we'll be her guides and help her do things that have helped us hahahaha. anyway. she was SUCH A FIREBALL! I can't wait for her to become one of the greatest members EVER!!! :) hahahaha. But I referred her to my last area. it's good. EMP is where all the stuff is supposed to happen anyway. :) hahahaha. That's wehre we want the branch. I guess God wants me to just find epople to give to them. :)

Also this week, we met this girl, and invited her to come to dinner with us at a members house (Which is the picture) ANYWAY. we were talking with her over dinner and discovered that she worked in a company called "retire well" or "retire old" or something like that. I can't remember. id idn't hear it properly. anyway. she said that. turns out. the member's father is her boss... his uncle is a co-owner of the company, and all her co-workers are members as well!!!! WOAH!!!!!!!!!!! hahahaha. it was really awesome. anyway. it was really good because eh evidently hasn't progressed too much in the church, but then during th lesson, she kept asking really good questions that she's been thining about. she said that she's always had heaps of questions but has never found the answer in christianity so she suan shi fo jiao.... anyway. and now ta suan shi MORMON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeh!!!!!!! LOOK AT THAT! and I had no idea about the whole job thing. it was pretty awesome.

Also... I tried to have a comb-over this time :) It looks gross. hahahahaha. only on pday though. don't worry, I'll wash it out. This morning, I got a haircut from Elder Abel in this area.. he's really good at cutting hari. :) hahahahaha

well I know this week was pretty boring, but we get to find a lot. lots of walking and talking and rejections and fun little things here and there to spice up the week. hahahaha :) We just played rugby and football for pday and so that was pretty fun. :) I haven't really gotten too good at the game but I still think it's pretty fun. :) hahahaha. I'm losing weight now!!! :) YEAH!!!! anyway. that was my little weight update. look at the rhyme behind that one. that was enjoyable.

ALRIGHT!!!!

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT MOM AND DAD!!! YOU"RE THE BEST!

Love,

Elder chen

4-7-13

Hello :)

How are you all doing?! I think the space bar on this computer is lagged a tiny bit, but I think I'll survive as long as I email a bit slower :) hahahahaha. OK! HOWEVER> I'm using a computer here in the city and it's really slow, so bear with me if suddenly there are a million typos in the email. hahaha. oh dear. all the other missionaries walked in and none of them are wearing their proselyting clothes............. :( GAH!!! OK ANYWAY! BIG NEWS!

I got transfered to the CITY again :) 

So I'm back here now. I got here on friday morning around 6:30 am, and now it is monday. so I've been here for a few days. it was an interesting switch. I was really sad in leaving Eight Mile Plains area, but a transfer is a transfer. :) Just run with it :) hahahaha. I had a wise friend tell me once that being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. it just means that you are willing to look past the imperfections. :) hahaha. I wanted to finish my mission down in Eight mile Plains. The ward and chinese program are all on fire and I was hoping to be able to get into that and help out, but, I guess the Lord wants me up here in the city to do whatever I need to do here. And there is a lot for me to do.

I left Elder Davies :(. He was THE MAN! I think he was definitely one of my favourite companions. I've never served with or around another missionary as good as him. He is a fireball. He taught me so much about everything even though he's been a missionary only for half a year.  His drive and his willing ness to go out and find people always surprised me. He taught me how to find on the wayside rather than just find while finding. I've never seen such a driven or consistent missionary. He's always smiling and positive, but when he needs to buckle down and correct people, he is willing to put the Lord before any of the other missionaries. He is going to be one of the greatest missionaries I've ever seen. Because of what I've learned from him, I've become so much greater here in the city. I'm going to miss serving with him. I wish I could've spent more time with him, but I guess not. :)  he needed to teach other missionaries. The only thing with him is that he just needs a companion that will drive him. hahaha. He's the man. I can't wait to see what happens with him. Maybe I'll go and look for his family when I get home hahaha. he's the man. i want to see what kind of family can raise that kind of missionary. hahaha.

My new companion is Elder Williams. He is THE MAN too. he just hasn't really had the chance to serve around missioanrise that really motivated him to go out and work. He's a really quiet fellow. hahaha. he' really good.  I really undersetimated him for the first bit of my time in this area. hahaha. at first I thought he really didn't talk much and didn't really like teaching too much either, but in a lesson, our investigators always ask really crazy questions and stuff, but he always isa ble to simplify it down to a level that it is impossible to misunderstand the doctrine. It's really good. All of the difficult questions anybody can ask, he can simplify down to some of the first principles of the gospel. I really admire that ability in him.

I was really sad to leave behind the empire of investigators in eight mile plains behind, but I've come to a really good area ;) it's really interesting tos wtich from my previous area to the one I'm serving in right now. before, elder davies and I didn't really feel the need to try to push people too much, and so we would make sure they were interested in church and make sure our purpose was clear as missionaries. However, when I got here, I think the elders here were working on everybody. not just the low hanging fruit. hahahaha. All of the investigators here are just interested in english and so when I sat down with them, they kinda were surprised when I asked them if they wanted to start with a prayer... kinda interesting, but since I've been here, We went from zero baptismal dates to 2, which is interesting, but we'll see. The zone leaders called to welcome me to the zone and let me know about the stats of the zone. I'mr eally excited to see wehre the zone can go from here.

Well, before I left, I didn't really tell anybody that I was leaving, which is good because it was a really smooth transition. hahaha ;)

Recently, I'vebeen going through all the different contacts that I've had from previous areas for this area, and I've been contacting them, and it's been so cool to see how they're progressing!!!! It's AWESOME! ANYWAY! the first day int he city was fun because I have this really cool investigator from eight mile plains and she has lots of friends. and I've contacted like 15 of them and they all tell her that I just contacted them hahahahahaha :) it's tooooooooo fun. We went crazy the first few days looking for potentials because I needed to refreshe the teaching pool. hahaha :) YEH!!!!

The only sad thing is that I left eight mile plains. But I'm going to try to make this work hahahaa :) The ward here still remembers me and we got a bunch of meals lined up for the next bit because they just wanted to welcome me back and stuff. it'll be fun. I still have to call some of the members that have seemed to go inactive. and Michelle, the baptism from this area , she invited to me to dinner the first day I was here, and gave us like ten referrals ahhahahaha. SHE"S SOOOOOO COOL! she needs to go to the temple..... :( I'm sad that she hasn't been yet, but she's the greatest. On the phone, she was like: I"m having a dinner at my house and you should come and invite all of them to church ! :) hahaha JIA YOU JIA YOU JIA YOU!!!! 

Lots of vietnamese people here... 

LOVE YOU ALL need to send this before my time is up :) hahaha

Elder Chen

4-3-13

So our zone and mission both broke the baptismal goals!!!! :) So we just had lunch at president langeland's house and it was super good. but I'm super full. and I think my digestion is slowing my typing speed down ahhahahaha. oh dear. that's no good so todays email may be a tiny bit shorter than usual.... actually recently, more of the emails have been a bit shorter :) hahahaha. oh well. SO evidently the first presidency changed the rules for emailing and missionaries can now email ohter missionaries and there were like a MILLION emails. hahahaha. 

Well this last week, as you can probably tell by the delayed email was temple week :) so we went to the temple. hence temple week :) hahahahaha. I'm so happy that I was able to go to the temple today. I've been so tired lately and my mind has been going everywhere with all our invesitigators and stuff. hahahaha. it's been crazy hahahahahahaha. SOOOO I was able to sit down for a bit in the temple and think about it. hahahaha. that's the oen. :)

Alright. Well guess what! I"M OLD! hahahaha. We went to President langeland's house to have lunch because we broke our baptismal goal and yeah! It's so much fun! hahahaha. he and sister langeland cooked for us (simple but good) and we had fun talking to him. It was funny. during the lunch, elder lee got up and tried to go outside, but there was a window in the way :P hahahahahaha. so he ran into the window, everybody saw it, so he kinda grunted and walked off. it was too funny. hahahahaha. oh goodness. so we got onto the topic of practical jokes on April Fools. President was so mean on April fools hahahahaha. I'll tell you when i get home later in the year :) haha. he is the funniest mission president in the world.

THis week was filled with so many fun weird things that happened. one of the biggest challenges that we've been constantly working to overcome is the logistics behind getting rides to church.... :O. it's so hard to get all of our investigators to church because the church is in such an inconvenient place. half of the time, we have to have our missionary team go out and pick them up. We had to get 16 rides from one place.... too much craziness. GAH!!!! SO MUCH STRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyway. we've started searching for people with cars to try to ease the burden, but it seems to be an ongoing cycle of stress and stuff. last week we had 40 chinese people at church and more than half of them were non-members. the ward was shocked because the chapel was overfilled and there were so many chinese people. hopefully that will motivate them to be more willing to come out and help us. hahaha. Australia is such an interesting place :)

We also met with ten new people this week! and have been doing a lot of first time meetings with a lot of people!! It's soooo cool :) hahaha. I haven't talked to so many new people in my life! actually, that's a lie, but for some reason, more people are willing to listen and meet with us :) it's really awesome.

One of the investigators that I contacted ages ago went back to china, and just came back. one of the first people he called was.... DUN DUN DUN! the MISSIONARIES!!!!!! GOLDEN!!!!!!!!! hahahaha. it was great because just taught him the day he called because he asked if we had time in the night (which we fortunately did) and yeah! we taught him!!!! he was sooo cool. He brought his girlfriend and told us he was about to buy ac ar so that is a double whammy win :)

ALso, we just got an OFFICE!!! :) hahahahahaa. SO instead of teaching at the mcdonalds or at some random park (students don't like going to their homes) we can go to our office. hahaha. it's funny because when they're in a hard chair, it's hard to get them to talk, but as soon as they sink back into the couches at our office, they just start to go OFF hahaha they talk to mcuh as soon as they feel comfortable. plus.. it has three air conditioning units. we're still in the process of furnishing the thing. for example, we just got the couches yesterday morning. hahaha so office time! YEH! hahaha. it's time to teach!!!! well yeah. so my time is basically up... sorry :( but I'll tell more stories next time :)!!!

LOVE YOU LOTS!!!!!

Elder Chen