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