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