Week 25: December 31, 2019

Hope you all had a merry christmas and have a happy new year! It's already 2020 out here in Australia, so crazy that I've almost been on my mission for half a year. Super good week though, and having so much fun in australia!

To start the week off we were shopping for food on p-day when a lady came up and started speaking to me in chinese looking for insect killer and I totally had a best 2 years moment where Elder Calhoun thought he was never gonna be good at the language, but his trainer told him one day someone would talk to him in Dutch and he would respond back without even knowing. So yeah that happened hahaha.

For Christmas Eve Dinner we went to a family's house in my old area, Eight Mile Planes, and when I got there I realized it was a family I had eaten at with before, and the kids were crazy and bit my comps leg. So luckily I came in prepared and became best friends with the craziest little girl named Maggie and then together we bullied the other Elders :)

Christmas was really boring because we had nothing to do, but luckily I had the mannheim steamroller 1984 christmas album on my phone along with all the Michael buble christmas songs, so I was able to last the day.

Overall a good holiday and I hope you all enjoyed it as well, along with remembering the actual purpose of Christmas! Remember all that Christ has done for you this time of year! Have a happy new years everyone!

Elder Ensign

高长老

1 Nephi 19:9

 

My best friend maggie

me in the city

Week 24: December 22, 2019

Merry christmas! (In 2 days, or 3 in the states) not much happened these past 5 days, so there's not much to catch up on. We had our mission wide christmas conference on Thursday last week, and it was really good to see some familiar faces, along with meet 2 elders from logan utah, Elder Hopkins and Elder Merriam. It was crazy to see almost 200 missionaries all gathered in the same chapel, which I haven't seen since the MTC so that was nice. The rest of the week contained lots of christmas activities so we have been pretty busy for the most part doing those. I'm so grateful for the christmas season to reflect back on all that Jesus Christ has done for us! Make sure to keep that in mind as you're celebrating this christmas season!

Elder Ensign

高长老

All the chinese missionaries and most of the ABM missionaries 

All the missionaries

Week 23: December 17, 2019

Another really fast week in the 澳大利亚 布里斯班 mission! Nothing too interested happened except when me and elder Kong were door knocking. Elder Hohneke stayed at our flat that day because he was looking after an elder from the Papau New Guinea mission, because he broke his leg. So me and Elder Kong went and did missionary work without him.

But anyway, we were walking from door to door, and on the way I saw a guy in a Jazz Jersey so I got super excited so I started talking to him, but when I got closer, I could smell the wine very strongly on his breath haha. But we talked about the jazz for a little bit, until he started talking really really deep church doctrine with me haha. He got into some anti church stuff and was just trying to tear me down and catch me off guard. Fortunately, I for real had the Holy Ghost on my side, otherwise I would've gotten beat real bad. Then he started ripping on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but I was able to testify of their importance and as I was doing so I could feel the spirit so strong, and he stopped trying to fight with me on my beliefs, and I was able to give him a Book of Mormon pass along card. It just made me realize how important the Gift of the Holy Ghost is. I didn't do any of that testifying, but I know that he felt the spirit and that's what stopped him from continuing to bible bash me. So that was a little fun experience I had! Also Monday this week hit a solid 41 degrees Celsius, which is about 108 degrees Fahrenheit. It's starting to get really really hot here and so humid, but hey it's better than -20 and 2 feet of snow right?? 

Have a good week everyone!

 高长老

Elder Ensign

Week 22: December 10, 2019

Wow, it's crazy I've been out in the field for 5 months already! Time really does fly on a mission. This week was super good though, and lots of good things coming!

We get 30 minutes for exercise in the morning, and my comp elder hohneke likes going to a park with a basketball court. I noticed there's a wall there though, so naturally I went to an OP shop (like the DI) and bought myself a 2 dollar wooden tennis racket, so now every morning i go play tennis against a wall. I also found a guy named Ralph whos 80 years old that goes there every once in a awhile to hit, so we play with each other. Hes so awesome and reminds me of Ron bachman, so that's been really fun. watch out all you tennis players back at home! The park also is very popular to chinese people in the morning- theres about 50 people there doing TaiQi and a lot of old people meditating. It's super funny and weird because it feels like I'm in mainland China in Sunnybank.

I was also doing service for a member in my ward, and we were like cutting trees and moving tons of trash for their house, but anyway I picked up a big branch and felt something crawling on my arm, and looked down and the biggest spider was chilling there, I can guarantee you I freaked out for about 7 and a half minutes hahaha

The people here in Australia also do NOT celebrate Christmas very big. I remember the highlight of Christmas was seeing all the lights around in Utah, and all the snow, but there's neither of those here! There's maybe 1 in 100 houses that actually has Christmas lights up which is so sad. However, we were driving home one night and saw the most decorated house in my life- literally just covered in lights and decorations. We talked to the guy who did it and he said he had to code all the lights because they actually were synchronized with songs they were playing! So awesome and got me hyped for christmas.

Also we got assigned someone from our Stake high counsel to help do literally anything for our Branch, and he is so hard working and trying to help us missionaries out so much. There's a lot of big moves about to happen in Sunnybank come Chinese new year, so I'm really pumped to see what's going to happen. We are making personalized pass along cards, videos, a website, etc.- it's going to be so awesome and I hope I can stay in Sunnybank to see it through. 

Have a good week! Love you all!

加油!

Elder Ensign 

Christmas house

Week 21: December 3, 2019

Super good week! Transfers were this Monday, and honestly these past 6 weeks flew by so fast. I also can't believe it's December right now! A big part of that is also because I'm so used to having snow in December but I'm definitely ok how it us right now hahaha. I'm staying in Sunnybank for another transfer, which is a blessing, and we got a new companion Elder Kong who is from mainland China and is super fun. He's also 26 years old so that makes for a major age gap. 

Last week for Thanksgiving, an elder bought like 100 pieces of chicken and a ton of sides from kfc and invited all the elders in my district to come over for a Thanksgiving dinner so I actually got some Thanksgiving dinner. We called it Kentucky fried giving. KFC here is super popular, but its not near as good as in the US which kinda sucks honestly. 

I also figured out something that made me so happy to be here this week. Apparently when President Hinckley was dedicating the Brisbane temple, he said that it would be the key to opening up China. I'm so blessed to be a part of something that big, and I'm so happy to be working with the Chinese people here in Brisbane. The mission has been such a blessing in my life and I'm so grateful to be able to help other people out for these 2 years!

Elder Ensign 

高长老

Also saw this at the airport when we were picking up elder Kong, and couldn't help but think about 2 Nephi 28: 8-9 haha give it a read

Week 20: November 26, 2019

Another good week in the ABM! Transfers is on next Monday so it'll be fun to see if I stay or if I go. This week was super fast though, for real. To start it out I got to go to a koala sanctuary and see my first koalas ever! They're a lot more lame than I thought, they just sleep like all day hahaha. 

The highlight of my week was getting to meet with my favorite new person we're teaching, brother Chen. He's like 50 and doesn't speak a word of English, and he's very interesting to say the least. Fun fact: like 3 weeks ago he called us out of the blue and wanted to go to church. We had never met him before or anything, so that was so cool. He invited us over for dinner last Friday, and it was super interesting. He fed us trail mix, a tomato, and then some kind of soup which was pretty weird. He also loves to tell us these really dramatic stories from the bible, in literally the most dramatic voice ever haha. He constantly roasts my Chinese though, because I'm currently at the level where I can have everyday conversations, but when someone starts telling me the story of Moses I get totally lost. And that's what this was like though. Elder Hohneke explained what he was saying and it was pretty funny to say the least. So naturally after he told his stories we asked if we could tell the story of Joseph Smith, and we did it in really dramatic voices too hahaha. It was the funniest experience ever. Hoping we can put brother Chen on baptismal date soon, because he's super interested in the gospel. Not much going besides that, we'll  see next week if I get transferred or not!

加油!

Elder Ensign 

高长老

Week 19: November 19, 2019

Another super fun week and a lot of crazy stuff has been happening! We got a new missionary handbook which got all us missionaries hyped up, but honestly it's not that exciting, but a couple of new rules like we can use headphones to call home so thats fun. 

This week has been so awesome, and I just wanted to highlight one point. I street contacted on Friday night with someone else, while my companion and his companion taught English class. It went really well and we talked to some awesome people, but when I was sitting at the bus station I saw a guy and felt really strongly like I needed to talk with him. I started talking with him and he was so awesome, from China (like basically everyone else in Sunnybank lol) and totally interested in what I was saying! So I invited him to church and 2 days later, he actually showed up! Which was surprising because a lot of Chinese people like to say they'll come but are really flaky and never come. So that was a serious miracle! Hopefully we can find some time to teach him this week. 

Also a CRAZY coincidence that happened this week. I was talking with our branches elders quorum president, Victor Lin, and about where he went to on his mission! Turns out he went to the Taiwan taichung mission a couple years ago, and when I asked what mission president he had, he had the same mission president as my older brother Michael when he went to Taichung! So I showed him a picture of michael and he recognized him, he said Michael was either in his district or zone. It was so cool though, and it really is a small world. The work is speeding up here and I'm so excited to be a part of it! 加油!

Elder Ensign

Alma 36

Some random churches bus with Jesus armwrestling Satan hahaha what the heck

Victor!

Week 18: November 12, 2019

Australia is going really good! It's getting super hot and humid now, but I'm not complaining because I'm not trudging though snow in Utah right now hahaha. However, there are a ton of fires here right now, I heard it's literally the most bushfires in Australia history, and they're all in like the Queensland area I'm pretty sure. The sky is super polluted all the time and it's scary for a lot of people but the fires haven't been close to where I am so that's a blessing. 

Not much has happened this week but I wanted to highlight one pretty sad part of my week. My comp and I decided to go door knocking one day, and ended up walking ALL over the place ha. We eventually decided we were going to finish, and we walking through a really rich neighborhood to our car, when I looked over and saw the most beautiful grass tennis court I've ever seen in my life. So naturally I decided we had to door knock them and beg them to play some tennis on it. However, when we got to the doorstep, I noticed a ton of cob webs all over the place leading up to the door. Then I looked up and right above the door was a humongous spider web, and in the middle was the biggest spider I've ever seen. It was like the size of the palm of my hand, soooo nasty. So obviously I freaked out for about 3 and a half minutes until my comp convinced me to walk under it to go to the door and reminded me of the pristine grass tennis court I was so excited about. So yeah I did and it was terrifying and I survived, except when I knocked on the door the lady was on her phone and told us she was busy and left. So my dreams were basically shattered haha. I'll go back in a couple days though, hopefully the spider will be gone by then? Anyway not much going on besides that and a lot of street contacting, hopefully we'll be able to meet with some of our friends we're teaching now that the college exams are finishing up. Hope you all have a good week!

Elder Ensign 

Temple pday

District piling up in the Sunnybank mom van

Week 17: November 7, 2019 I WAS MUGGED (NOT CLICKBAIT)

Another week in the Land down Under completed, and 4 months into the mission! It's super crazy that it's November now, it doesn't even feel like I'm out of July yet. Anyway, about the title! I didn't actually get mugged I just know that like no one reads my emails anymore, so I wanted to grab your attention for 3 seconds so I could remind you all to read the Book of Mormon, because it's pretty important to me :)

Anyway besides that, not much is going on! It's finals time here for all the college's, so its really hard to meet with some of our friends, so we've been doing a lot of street contacting. One of those ways is through a public outdoor ping pong table that we found in park! We found people are a lot less likely to reject you over a game of ping pong, and it's really fun to see all these kids come up and want to play with us, and then ask why we're dressed up like this. Today is my p-day because my district has a temple p-day so that should be exciting! Other than that not much else is happening!

Love you all!

高长老

Week 16: Week of Firsts - October 28, 2019

The work is starting to speed up here! This last Friday we had a cultural night for our branch and it was super fun. I had a lot of first things happen to me though! First off, someone brought stinky tofu to the cultural night, so naturally I had to try. It was literally the grossest thing ever. It literally tasted like I was eating poop. Secondly, last p-day I finally saw a kangaroo! My first one. And then 2 days ago when we were door knocking I looked over to the side and saw the biggest spider of my life. It had a humongous web and was like the size of the palm of my hand. So nasty, I freaked out for a second hahaha. 

Something that we figured out in Sunnybank a little bit ago is that if you street contact with a slurpee in your hand, people seem more comfortable talking to you. This is so true though! The other day I had a slurpee in my hand, and talked to 3 straight people For several minutes each, and got their Facebook messengers, but then I threw away my cup and went to talk to another guy, and he rejected me hardcore. Like hardcore. So for all your missionaries out there, it's worth a try. Plus here in Australia they have 1 dollar large slurpees at literally every places; 7/11, KFC, and McDonald's, so its super nice. Other than that, not much else happening here! It's starting to feel like we're getting more and more success so hopefully we'll be able to build on that! Have a good week everyone! 

Elder Ensign 

2 Nephi 4

Week 15: October 22, 2019

By far the most crazy but best week in the field! So much has happened. They announced transfers on Saturday, and that I will be going up to Bundaberg, and my trainer would be Elder Lin from Taiwan! At least it would be. I'm still in Sunnybank. Elder Gan was supposed to stay in Sunnybank, but he really doesn't like it here because it's the hardest area in our mission, and especially hard on some missionaries from China, especially because a lot of them are converts, and it's just really hard to see any success here and we just get rejected so much compared to English areas. So for the next 24 hours the AP's and our mission president worked to find a solution, and first said I would still be going to Bundaberg and they would be closing down Sunnybank because we have no numbers, but Elder Hohneke told them that was a terrible idea, and by then Elder Gan said he was fine staying for 1 more transfer. The AP's said I would still be going to bundaberg, so I packed all my stuff up, but then hours later they decided I would stay so I  had to unpack all my stuff again. So I'm still in Sunnybank, with Elder Hohneke! 

This week was awesome though! Saturday before they announced transfers was the first day I kind of felt like things were starting to turn around here. We taught one of our main friends, Abby, and she just seemed so ready for baptism and I could feel the spirit so strongly in our lesson! After that we went and street contacted again, and Elder Hohneke and I separated to talk to 2 different people, and it was 2 of the best street contacts of our lives! We both for real talked with these people for 15 minutes, and got their contact information and everything. I can't wait to follow up more with them and hopefully have an opportunity to teach them. Then, Sunday was super good! There was like 25 people at church not counting missionaries which is like 10 more than usual, it was awesome! After that, we had a lesson with Abby again, and we were just asking her if she believed God is our Heavenly Father, and next thing I know is she's asking how she can be prepared to be baptized! So we set a date for November 30th of next month. So crazy, it finally is starting to feel like all our hard work is paying off here, but we still gotta keep working as hard as we can! Hope you all have a good week! 加油!

Elder Ensign 

me and Elder Hohneke at the temple!

me and Elder Gan street contacting while elder Hohneke is sitting because his ankle is still destroyed haha

Week 14: October 15, 2019

This week was super long but super good! To start off, me and all the Sunnybank elders went and got a haircut from someone who didn't speak like any English, and she gave all of us these super Asian haircuts, but they are low-key pretty fresh so it's okay! We street contacted a lot this week, and then yesterday we decided to do a basketball contact and met some really awesome people, but then my companion like destroyed his ankle so we had to leave and couldn't get anyone's contacts. We also have transfers on the coming Monday which is super exciting, but they don't announce where we're going until Friday so I guess we'll see if I'm staying or not! 

Elder Ensign did a list of changes he's experienced while he's in Manchester so I figured I better copy him haha

1. driving on the left side of the road- already so used to it that if I went back now I would probably crash and die

2. the slang: I say "man that's sweet as" all the time also I call McDonald's "mackers"

3. Also call apartments "flats" like Mark

4. Tim tams are officially 1 million times better than Oreos and the Tim tams here taste different than in America so sorry

6. Bundaberg sodas are better than any other soda ever 

7. The watch for kangaroo signs instead of deer

Lastly, Conference was this last Saturday and Sunday for me and it was so good! I was able to watch it in Chinese, and man it was so hard. I had to follow along in English on my phone hahaha. But President Nelson's closing remarks gave me the chills! I'd like to invite you all to go read his remarks again and try to do everything he invited us to do, and truly prepare yourself for next conference in 6 months! Hope you all have a good week!

Elder Ensign 

It hailed a ton and like flooded my area pretty bad this last week, but anyway I decided to whip my handy bike out that I've used 1 time in my whole time here and bike in the rain 

Week 13: October 7, 2019 Lost in the Big City

What up what up! It's crazy to think that I'm already 3 months into the mission! It's so hard but so worth it. This week was awesome! To start it off, we went on a companionship exchange with the river terrace elders, which are the elders who's area is like in the big city, which is so cool. So Elder Liu from China exchanged with me and came to Sunnybanks, and my comp elder Hohneke went with Elder Carman to the city. They don't have a car in river terrace, and I was the only one that could drive so they wanted me to drop them off like way downtown before me and Elder Liu went back so they wouldn't have to walk, and after dropping them off, we got lost haha. Elder Liu's english is also not that good, so he couldn't really explain where we were going haha. So after driving around on some crazy busy downtowm roads we finally got out! This week was so awesome though! 

There was definitely one thing that was a game changer this week. I would be door knocking or street contacting, and I was just deathly scared of it, but this week, I just took it with so much more confidence and learned to actually love the people, and we had so much more success doing it! Definitely not perfect at it but a lot less awkward. We were kind of getting sick at street contacting because it felt like we weren't having as much success for how much work we put out, so we decided to go street contact by playing basketball! It was so fun haha, we played with some really good Asian dudes but don't worry I put up my fair share of points. Afterwards we got to talk with one of them, and he's so awesome! He's interested in coming to church though, and just a really cool guy that we are going to try and stay in touch with, so that was a blessing. 

At church this week though, I bore my testimony at church, and after the meeting a member came up and told me my Chinese was bùcuò 不错 which means not bad. That's honestly the goal here, because when someone says your Chinese is bùcuò that means your actually really good at Chinese haha. So I'm ready to get reassigned to China next conference! Just kidding haha. I unfortunately wasn't able to watch conference this week because it was like 2 in the morning before, but this Saturday and Sunday I will get to! So excited, it's like the superbowl! Have a good week everyone!

加油!

Elder Ensign 

Week 12 (again): October 1, 2019 A Refurbished Elder Ensign

Sorry everyone, I put week 12 on the last email on accident, this one is for real! And in terms of the title, everyone here who trains new people become their mission "dad", so elder Setiawan was my dad for 2 weeks and now Elder Hohneke is my foster dad, and he called me a "refurbished" Elder Ensign so that's nice. There's 4 elders in the Sunnybank house, me, him, elder Breinholt, and Elder Gan, so we're all technically companions but Elder Hohneke is my trainer, and he's awesome. He had my same MTC teacher sister Hendrix so shoutout to her for being an awesome teacher, and he's also a big time packers fan so it'll be a good time here haha. My flat also has a tennis court like 20 meters away from it so we're going to go buy some cheap tennis rackets and play on it! 

This last Thursday before I moved to Sunnybanks we had a golden orientation for all the new elders with our mission president and the Ap's and it was awesome! The Meeting was at the church right by the temple, and the view from there is incredible! I'm hoping I can go to that area, River Terrace sometime soon because the view is so awesome. I Also got to go buy some Australian candy and some Bundaberg Ginger beer which is really popular here, and let me tell ya, when I come home I'm gonna leave all my clothes behind and pack my bags full of candy and soda because it's addicting as...

This week was really hard though! I had a hard time understanding everyone and had literally no idea what was going on! Good thing I have the best trainer Elder Hohneke who's given me some amazing words of council along with Elder Breinholt and Elder Gan for helping me too. We've done street contacting every single day here which is so much different from my last week and honestly so awkward for me but I know eventually I'll be good at it so I gotta keep pressing forward! Hope all is going well though and thank you all for the emails you've sent me it means a lot!

Elder Ensign

Me, Elder Carman (another student of Sister Hendrix), Elder Breinholt, Elder Gan and some people they taught

View from the temple

Temple

Week 12: September 24, 2019 An Answer to My Prayers

大家好!

2 weeks down in Brisbane! And a really exciting yet confusing week as well! I'll expound on my title later, so just "endure to the end" hahahaha. We've been teaching a bunch of really awesome people that are progressing and it's been fun! I've also been trying to look for a lot of people to speak Chinese with, and one way was with the sisters in my area. I was feeling pretty confident with my Chinese abilities around them until they told me "ni de zhong wen hen bang" which is basically saying your Chinese is awesome, but they told me at the MTC when they say that they really mean that your Chinese sucks hahaha because thats something they like say to little kids. Kinda made me depressed but that's ok.

Something funny that happened this week was Elder Setiawan and I were visiting members houses, and we were walking up to this one person's house, and there was a big tree with some really colorful birds in it. I was just walking under the tree when j just heard a little rustling and then something really wet hit my arm. THE BIRDS PEED ON ME! Haha it was so gross and I was just complaining about it, but then Elder Setiawan brought up the come follow me from like 2 weeks ago that talked about your trials being a blessing. So after we knocked and no one was home, we started walking back to the car, but I joked around and told elder Setiawan I was going to run under the tree so I don't get peed on again, so I started running and no joke the birds tried to pee on me again, but luckily I ran so they just missed me. Your trials truly are a blessing!

Anyways, about the title. Monday evening me and Elder Setiawan were visiting people and one of the Ap's called us. He basically said that Elder Gao in the Sunnybanks area told them that he wanted to go back to an English area so he could learn English, and they wanted me to go switch with him, so I would be with Elder Hohneke and Elder Gao would be with Elder Setiawan. He told me the transfer would take place the next morning after district council. I honestly had mixed feelings because I like EMP but I want to be able to use Chinese more. So we get back and I just start packing everything frantically, not really folding anything because I'm lazy and was just gonna unpack the next day. And the next day after district council, we go up to Elder Gao and ask if he's ready to move and he gets the most confused look on his face haha. The Ap's only told me about it and not him, and he wanted to stay in Sunnybanks for the rest of the transfer and then move out. So we were all confused but we just went on with the day because we were all busy and Elder Gao was going to call our mission president later, and tell him that he wanted to switch at the end of the transfer instead. Later at night when we were about to go home and unpack everything, Elder Gao told us that we are indeed doing the transfer on Thursday, so guess I'll be in Sunnybanks now! A lot of mixed feelings in this because I was just starting to really enjoy my time in EMP but now I get to go to a Chinese area and work on my Chinese. Oh well, the work must go on! 加油!

Elder Ensign

Sorry no pictures this week!

Week 10: September 9, 2019

The night is dark and I am far from home... lead thou me on

Sorry I'm too lazy to make a new email one so I'm going to reply just for this week. I arrived in Brisbane today and got to meet my mission presidents and even got to drive around on the left side of the road. The toilets do flush the opposite way however so that's fun. 

I just got dropped a bomb however that is very hard for me in all honesty. Turns out I'm getting trained by an English elder for my first transfer so I won't be able to use my Chinese as much as I wanted to. I know it's not what I want but it's what the Lord has in plan for me. I'll email more next week and reply next week as I'm very busy this week.

Elder Ensign

Just minutes before I left I looked up and saw the England Flag and the Australian flag next to each other. It's hard saying goodbye to my best friend for 2 years but I know he's gonna do good work out there.

Week 11: September 17, 2019

Craziest week of my life so far, and probably the hardest! I'll go a little more in depth of everything that's happened because it's been super fun! So first off I left the MTC Monday morning at 11 and went to the airport and on the tracks we met some guy who actually went to Adelaide Chinese speaking so that was awesome! Then after that I looked out the window and MY MTC TEACHER sister Hendrix was outside the window so that was an awesome surprise. So anyway we finally got to Australia after a horrible plane ride, and then I got told my trainer was going to be Elder Setiawan, an English Speaker who doesn't speak a word of Chinese. I was honestly so depressed because I knew I wasn't going to be put in Sunnybanks, the main Chinese area but I at least hoped I would get put with a Chinese companion so I could practice my Chinese. So Anyway I got assigned to an area called Eight Mile Planes to whitewash, which is super cool and fun, plus I get to drive because elder Setiawan doesn't have his license because he's from Indonesia. And it's on the left side of the road haha. I've turned on the windshield wipers a couple times instead of the turn signal but besides that I'm pretty good at driving here now.

Australia is seriously so awesome, and so different though. It feels a lot like California in the summertime right now, so its gonna be blazing hot in the actual summer. Literally one of the first things the mission presidents wife told us is to watch out for the birds, because apparently around this season the magpies like to swoop and attack your head for some crazy Land Down Under reason. And she also said that the kangaroo are like deer around here, and you'll always see them run across the road and get hit by people so that's awesome. They have those watch for kangaroo signs all over the place just like in utah they have the watch for deer signs haha. I have yet to see a kangaroo, koala, or a giant spider so I'm pretty upset right now. Another weird thing is that there's this weird car around here and it's literally a sedan on the front and a truck bed on the back. It's super wack but super popular around here. And I've seen plenty of combie vans around here but not a single shrimp on the barbie. If you go watch the Land Down Under music video, it's spot on for how Australia really is haha just kidding.

Much to my surprise though, I was able to get a lot more opportunities to speak Chinese than I thought, but not near as much as I would hope. Every 2 weeks there's like a Chinese district council thing so we went to that on Saturday, and I could actually for the most part understand what the people there were saying even though they spoke way fast. Also in my area there was assigned 2 sisters and they're both from mainland China, so whenever I see them I speak Chinese. It's not much but it's a lot better than I was expecting and I hope to get more opportunities as I go along. 

Even though I was very upset about my calling as English speaking I know it's what the Lord has in plan for me. Some of the investigators we've met here in this area are awesome and I know that I was assigned here to help them. Whenever I get down on myself I turn to one of my favorite Scriptures of all time Alma 26:27. This chapter overall is such a good missionary chapter but this one is my favorite during tough times. I know that as long as I keep pressing forward the Lord will help me through my trials. Shoot me an email and let me know how it's going in Utah or wherever!

Love you all!

Elder Ensign

Sister Hendrix on the train

with my companion

Week 9: September 9, 2019

I leave in about 2 hours to the Salt Lake City airport! I'm so excited to go but I'm very sad to leave a lot of my friends. This week has been awesome! It was a little bit more relaxed because we were all getting ready to leave and doing a lot of packing.

This week for TRC's we were supposed to have 5, 1 member skype and 4 nonmember TRC's but our schedule unfortunately got all messed up so we weren't able to teach all of them. We only ended up teaching the skype, and 1 on Wednesday. I was a little bit upset about it but I'm going to be doing a lot of teaching in Brisbane so I think I'll be fine haha I'll have 2 years to get over it. 

Sorry that this email was so short, I have to go finish packing and everything! Unfortunately I don't have my phone so I won't be able to send any pictures but I'll have plenty of pictures from Brisbane next week! The next time I'll be emailing you is going to be from Brisbane! I love you all!

Elder Ensign

Week 8: September 2, 2019

IN ONE WEEK FROM TODAY IM FLYING OUT TO BRISBANE! I'm seriously so excited, I think after being in the MTC for 2 months has gotten a little old. Last week Elder Christensen left to go to Canada, and he was only here for 7 weeks. So that means the companionships all got changed. I'm now with elder Pangilinin and Elder Packer again. Honestly this week has been one of the funnest weeks at the MTC, especially with the 5 TRCs haha. 

My first one we were studying a ton for, and we were teaching someone named Stacey. she told us she had some family problems in the middle of the lesson so I decided to just share 3rd nephi 18:21. This was totally off our lesson script but I felt like it was what I needed to do and it couldn't have been more perfect. After I shared it with her we just had like a 5 minute rapid fire conversation where she was asking questions and I was just talking back and answering, and my 2 companions were just sitting there and watching me. Honestly my best lesson so far because there's no way Elder Ensign was saying all that stuff. Some of the words I used were like stuff I didn't really even know and my companions said they felt the spirit so strong when I was teaching her and they could barely understand what I was saying. Such an awesome lesson, it was just what I needed to be able to gain some confidence in my non member TRC's because they really scared me before. I definitely couldn't learn this language without the Gift of Tongues and I'm so excited to get to share the gospel with the people in Brisbane next week. I know my Chinese isn't perfect but something Elder Packer said when I was being hard on myself after some of my TRC's stuck with me. Just imagine him saying this with an "Elder Holland 'singe your eyebrows type' of speech." He said "Elder Ensign, you're never going to have a perfect lesson. On the last day of the mission you're not going to have a perfect lesson. All that matters is I felt the spirit, you felt the spirit, and I know that she (Stacey) felt the spirit." 

I'm seriously so excited to get to go to Brisbane, I know that there are people there specifically for me to help. I know even though my Chinese isn't perfect that I'll still be able to have an impact on the people of Brisbane. There's nothing better I could be doing with the next 2 years of my life! The work must go on!

加油！加油！加油！

Elder Ensign

2 of my good friends elder Pinkney (right) and Elder Rigby (left) (Steffon from bear river, the tennis champ) left for Montreal Canada along with Elder Christensen who is not in the picture

Week 7: August 26, 2019

What a wild week! This has for sure been one of the most humbling but coolest weeks here at the MTC. ELDER BEDNAR came and gave a devotional at the MTC, and the best part is since my companion is from the Philippines he gets like front row seats for translating, which he doesn't need because his English is perfect, but we still go there anyway. So we literally sat 8 rows away from Elder Bednar while he was talking. It was such a powerful talk, and basically he told us as long as we're being "good boys and good girls" and striving to be better everyday, then we'll be able to be successful missionaries and have the spirit with us. All the old Mandarin and Cantonese speakers left this last week, which was really sad, but they got replaced by an English district in our zone, which is so weird because we literally never have had English speakers in our zone, only Mandarin and Cantonese, so that's super weird.

This week we had 5 TRC's, which is a lot off from our 1 TRC a week prior to this. 4 of these were non member, and the other one was on Skype. It's seriously so humbling because they all speak so fast and I have no idea what they're saying, but that's OK because I didn't expect to be fluent 7 weeks into the MTC. I get my flight plans this Friday though, which is so crazy and exciting, because Its basically Christmas at the MTC, and when you've been here for 7 weeks like us, it's kind of a big deal. In just 2 more weeks I'll be flying out to Brisbane! 

This week in class my teacher showed such an awesome part of a talk from Elder Holland when he spoke at the MTC back in 2000. I was able to find the whole talk on gospel library and read it. A really good quote from it says: "I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price." It is seriously such a good talk, it's on gospel library if you just search up: "missionary work and the atonement". I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission and to be able to bring the joy that comes from this gospel to people's lives. I know that it's not going to be an easy 2 years, but it will be so worth it. 

Love,

Elder Ensign

Alma 29

Sorry not many pictures this week, but my district was supposed to be pondering a mural, and me, elder packer, and both the sisters fell asleep so they took this picture of us haha

Week 6: August 19, 2019

你们好！

This week was probably one of my most eventful weeks here in the MTC. Something really funny this week is I ate a salad wrap here and then my stomach started hurting a ton, and my companion thought that my appendix burst so he forced me to go, even though I knew it was just an upset stomach, to the health clinic, which was closed, so we went from there to the intermountain urgent care that's quite a bit away from the MTC so I got to breathe some outside air for the first time in a while which was nice.

Probably the coolest experience of my whole time here happened this Saturday. My last actual member TRC's was this Saturday, and from now on I have non member TRC's 5 days a week so thats super crazy to think about. But anyway for TRC's I kind of worked with my older brother Michael, and got him to come volunteer for TRC's on Saturday, and when it finally came I had the opportunity not just to see him, but to get to teach him!!! I was so excited but it was really hard to see someone close to me have to leave again haha. Plus his Chinese humbled me quite a bit, but don't worry by the time my 2 years are up I'll be better than him hahaha.

This week all of the mandarins and Cantonese speakers ahead of me are all leaving, including the Jergensen twins and Elder Brenchley. I'm sad to see them go along with all the other friends I've made, but I know they're doing the Lord's work and that they'll do so good out there! In 3 more weeks I'll be flying out to Brisbane and couldn't be more excited to serve the people there! 加油！ 加油！

 我爱你们！

Elder Ensign (高长老）

I really don't know why we took this pic

The legend Elder Chansing

Me and my comp after the temple

Me with Michael


This is kind of a personal experience that I just wanted to share with you all and not my weekly email. So during class on either Wednesday or Thursday my teacher was helping me and my comp out and she started asking me questions about my goals, and I wanted to do better with lessons because my companion normally speaks more in the lessons than I do because he has a lot of Chinese experience and I don't. So anyway she keeps kinda asking me what's holding me back and I finally kinds just break down and just start saying how hard it's been for me to stop comparing my Chinese to others, and how other people seem like they're progressing so much more than me so she gives me this chapter, judges 6 verses 36 to 40. So basically she told me that she knows that I'm one of the hardest working Chinese students in her class, and she explained kind of one of her own experiences with this and told me that God recognizes me working hard and that she wanted me to pray and kinda ask for something along the lines of what Gideon was asking for. Normally asking for signs from God is something we shouldn't do, but she told me to do it. I basically prayed and asked God to help me have more success in my lessons, and to be able to have more 50/50 lessons with my companion rather than him talking most of the time, because that's how the lessons have gone up until now. Then at TRC's I was walking into the first room to teach people, and I felt way more confident than I have before in my TRC's and I was able to give a good lesson and lead the whole thing and I taught probably 50/50 for like the first time, and then the 2nd one I got to teach Michael which was so much fun. My Chinese still isn't amazing, but I think it was just the confidence boost that I needed from Heavenly Father to be able to teach lessons better. Then when we went to the temple this morning, I went in with one question: "am I going to be a successful missionary?" Because honestly this whole time I've been here I've kind of been doubting myself. In the ordinance room I just got a sudden thought to turn straight to Mosiah 7. I don't think I've ever gotten a prompting so specific, but when I got to the celestial room I flipped straight to it and started reading the heading, and at first I didn't see anything at all that would pertain to this. So I flipped over to the end of the chapter and read verse 33. It reads "But if ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in him, and serve him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage." This has been probably the coolest experience I've had at the MTC so far, and my testimony has grown so much from it. Sorry this is so long, I just thought this is something you all needed to hear.

Love,

Elder Ensign

Week 5: August 12, 2019

大家好！

By far my favorite week of the MTC so far! So much fun! I officially hit the one month mark of my mission last saturday, and by the time I leave the MTC I'll be 1/12 done with my mission! So much stuff happened this week. First off, me and my roommates were able to get a hold of a fridge on last monday, but 4 days later the mtc went around and took EVERYONES fridges from them. I was super depressed because I was so excited to get a fridge haha. 

Another dumb thing is the new cantonese elders decided it would be funny to have all 7 of them jump in the elevator at the same time, and they snapped the elevator cord and had to sit in the elevator for about an hour. And whats annoying is that my class is on the 4th floor and they closed both elevators for like 2 days to fix them so i had to take the stairs... needless to say I don't get along well with the new cantonese elders. Another huge event is that over half of the MTC is moving buildings this wednesday because everyone's zones got split up. So that means I have to go to the basement of another building, which kind of sucks because I really liked my room on the 4th floor and we were with the other chinese zone but now we won't be together.

Aside from that, TRC's this week were really good. I was able to express myself a lot better, and was able to share a personal experience with the people I taught on the Book of Mormon and it was seriously such a cool experience. As I was bearing my testimony to them I could feel the spirit so strong. Its awesome looking back and seeing how much I've improved, even though I've still got a long way to go, but I am honestly so thankful for the opportunity to get to learn the mandarin chinese language.

One more month and I'll be in Australia! I couldn't be more excited to share this gospel with the people of Brisbane! Love you all! 加油！

Love,

Elder Ensign 

1: me pulling an Elder Tumbokon

2: Elder Robison and I

3: Luke Dance

4: my roommates messing around haha

my roommates messing around haha

me pulling an Elder Tumbokon

Elder Robison and I

Luke Dance