Week 28: January 22, 2020

Bundaberg has been really fun and I'm enjoying my time here a lot. I guess I'll just highlight a couple of fun things that happened this week:

on friday we had the opportunity to do service for a member that lives about an hour and a half away at her farm. She had an australian/ southern accent which is still very hard for me to get over the fact of hahaha. Anyway, we helped her put a barbed wire fence up and I felt like I just graduated from Mountain Crest high school and was finally doing my lifelong career of working on a farm. Glad I went to Ridgeline instead ;)

This week was awesome because I got a few opportunities to 打 some 网球 (play some tennis) which was so fun. Yesterday night I played with a guy named david who we are teaching, and he was like the 6th best at tennis in australia when he was 12 but got into drugs really badly. Hes trying to clean up though so that's good. The best part though was that it was on CLAY tennis courts- the most fun I've had in forever. It was my first time playing on clay too. You can slide really good on clay so I was being very very extra with my tennis game haha. I actually felt like I haven't gotten any worse at tennis than when I first left, so watch out all you future 2021 herald journal tennis tournament opponents ;) however after I finished, my knees were cooked, I think I'm too old for tennis now. It has been raining a ton here during the nights which is really really good for the drought, but the worst part is that after it rains here, the next day is extra extra humid. So yeah I was dripping sweat just walking outside, it's really bad. Especially when I finished playing tennis, I was literally soaking hahahaha haven't experienced this kind of heat ever.

This area has been harder than I've expected though, the members and the bishop are a little less enthusiastic about missionary work than I thought they would be, so we are working on that. To put it simply, they think that service is the solution for everything. So yeah we've done a lot of service, including working at a soup kitchen for homeless people. It's been hard but we are working hard to try to speed up the work here. However, I just wanted to emphasize how important missionary work and we all should be involved in it, not just missionaries! It shouldn't be something that's hard or uncomfortable, it's a way to bring the happiness of the gospel to your friends! So keep that in mind this week and if the opportunity arises, don't feel uncomfortable to share with someone because it can really help them and yourself out!

Matthew 9:37-38

Elder Ensign

Do yourself a favor and try to find yourself some bundaberg drinks- they are in a glass bottle and are made in bundaberg- my area. Literally so good. You can probably find them in maceys in Utah though!

Week 27: January 14, 2020: The Land Flowing with Milk and Honey

Wow what a week! Transfers were on monday, and not what I expected at all! They pulled me and a sister out of Sunnybank, we both have the most experience there and I thought we were going to stay for at least one more transfer and help some new people know how to do work there, but I guess not. The best part of this is I get to go to a place called Bundaberg! Fun fact, I was supposed to go there 2 transfers ago. We call it the land flowing with bundaberg and sugar cane, because that's basically all there is here lol. Bundaberg gingerbeer is a drink that's made here and is very famous in australia, I'd like to encourage you all to go find some at Maceys and try it, sooo good. 

My new comp is elder Lin, hes from taiwan, so I'm very happy to be able to practice my chinese more. Monday started out with me dropping my trainer off to go home, and then driving 5+ hours to bundaberg. I can tell I'm going to really love it here, because the first visit was with an 85 year old woman who listens to rap hahaha. Bundaberg is also famous to all the missionaries in the whole mission because of a guy named Patrick- hes a nonmember that has been meeting with the missionaries for 6 years, but hes the nicest guy ever! He always hangs out with the missionaries and helps us do everything, and does super fun pdays with us here. 

I'm really liking bundaberg though, because it has a really nice home feel to it, it literally feels exactly like cache valley, except for having absolutely no mountains at all- it's so flat here, not a single hill I'm not kidding. It's a lot bigger landwise than cache valley, but smaller city. It has tons of farms here, and chances are I'm going to be here for about 6 months just because of how long of a drive it is to get here. The members are super into missionary work, so I'm gonna be eating tons of food, and tons of fresh australian mangos which are so much better than the US. Fruit in Australia is better than anything in the US, trust me. 

One funny story this week though is on sunday, me and elder hohneke were driving and looked out the window and saw this guy decked out in packer gear. (Elder hohneke LOVES the packers too). So I like swerved off to the side of the road and tried to find a place to park like a maniac, and then we literally sprinted in full church clothing to catch up with him. So yeah we had a nice catch up about how the packers are doing, Go Pack go! 

Sorry this email was extra long by the way ha

Elder Ensign

the only "mountains" I've seen in australia which is basically just hills in utah

my favorite kid in the sunnybank branch named William

the bundaberg sign

Week 26: January 7, 2020

Before I start, if I could ask you guys to please keep Australia in your prayers, the fires are getting really really bad here. Thank you so much!

Thank you all for the emails checking if I'm ok, the fires are not too close to me so I'm fine for now.

Crazy that I hit my mission bump in 2 days! The bump is when you hit 6 months on the mission, then theres the hump which is 1 year, slump is a year and a half, and 2 is the dump. Shout out to my dad for this killer analogy haha. This week was absolutely crazy though, so much happened. I met a guy from Hong kong on the street who is like 80 years old and was playing the accordion like a legend so that was super awesome. Then a 12 year old kid called us asking about english class, and ever since then has been texting us non stop which is slightly very annoying but we're trying to meet with her family because they actually seem pretty interested. One of my favorite members, Cedric, took us to the city and treated us to some ice cream and some super spicy wings, literally the most spicy thing I've ever had. That man literally loves spicy food so much, and my stomach has suffered so bad eating with him. The wings were from a Korean wings place, and the name of the wings is called freaking hot wings, they literally make you wear gloves and warn you like 20 times while you're trying to order it, and I could only manage to stomach 4 before I died. So hot haha, they don't have that kind of spicy in utah, so I don't want any of you saying you can deal with spicy food because I know you can't. A lot of miracles this week though! Our mission is focusing on finding for the next month so we've been trying extra hard, despite being in the only area that consistently goes street contacting every day ha. We went door knocking one day though and found 2 chinese people who were totally interested, and then we saw this girl at a park so I decided to go talk with her and she was the most prepared person I have ever met! She really wanted to come to our free english class, and then took a picture of me with an English card so if you end up seeing me famous on the internet don't be surprised Haha. But she also said she was really interested in christianity and wanted to get a copy of a thai book of Mormon! Hopefully we will be able to help her out and keep meeting with her. Next week is transfers so I'm hoping for a 4th transfer in Sunnybank, because I really like it here and big stuff is coming next transfer! Sorry this is longer than usual, this has just been a really good week.

高长老

also here's a 6 month checklist of stuff that's happened to me already haha

Checked off:

• seen a giant spider

• seen a koala

• seen a kangaroo

• seen a didgeridoo

• seen a boomerang

• seen the most Australian looking man ever

• seen a combie van

• seen a typical Australian ute

• seen literally the biggest lizards ever, like the size of your arm

• seen tons of super pretty beaches

• gotten sworn at

• met a man clearly on drugs with a fannypack full of marijuana and a jacket covered in blood

•  got wrecked by random old chinese guys in basketball

•  bought an australian bucket hat 

Still haven't seen:

• snake

• aboriginals

• the Bush

• no sunburns yet!

A couple pictures including:

A brisbane monopoly

Us at the brisbane museum

The book of mormon musical

Me killing my dad (if you are with a companion and then they go home, we call it killing them, and we call him my dad because he trained me)

Me spending 20 dollars to buy a ton of Australian crap

The video of my friend lin the accordion guy