Weekly Update July 29, 2013

G'day mates!

What a long week this has been!! This week Elder Tobe and I set our sights on trying to find people to teach. That meant lots of tracting and street contacting (mission lingo is GQing, or Golden Questioning). Unfortunately, our efforts did not yeild a lot of results. We're going to work a different part of the area this week, and I believe we'll find more success there.

This week was a week of miracles and unforgettable experiences! Our first miracle was with two of our investigators, Rahul and Anita. Rahul, or Ray, is in his late 20s early 30s, and is Anita's son. They are Figian-Indian. We hadn't seen them for about 3 weeks, and in our last appointment with them, we challenged them to read the Book of Mormon everyday for at least 5 minutes. We had previously given them a challenge to read the Book of Mormon, but they hadn't done so. When Elder Tobe and I arrived at their home, I wasn't feeling too confident that they had been reading. To our surprise, Ray had been reading almost every day, and Anita had read a little bit, too! We read Moroni 10: 3-5 with them, and committed them to pray about the Book of Mormon. They said they would. After the lesson, Anita left for work, and we stayed behind to talk with Ray. He is really enjoying the Book of Mormon, and enjoys meeting with us. We have previously only been meeting with them fortnightly, but he wants us to come around weekly. Our next appointment with them is tomorrow. If they have prayed about the Book of Mormon and received an answer, we're going to challenge them to be baptized.

Next miracle: About a month ago, Elder Sualevai and I were riding past the bus station in North Lakes when we heard someone shout "hey Elders!" We turned around and biked over to say hi. One of them was a less-active girl named Malekai. She is living with her boyfriend in North Lakes. We invited her to come to church. She said she would text us if she had time and needed a ride. We gave her our phone number, not feeling too confident we would hear from her. We didn't. But on this past Wednesday, I received a call from her, saying she felt very strongly she needs to come back to church. We told her where the chapel was and what time. She made all the arrangements she needed to get there on her own, and attended yesterday! She really enjoyed being there and is really excited to keep coming back. She brought her family with her to our ward yesterday since she didn't know anyone there. Her mum was very grateful to us that we decided to come and talk to her when we did. This is a miracle to us in two ways: first, that she had made an effort on her own to come to church. Second, her boyfriend--Caleb--told us he would be interested in learning about the church, but we have had no way of contacting him. Now we do!

Finally, and experience I am never going to forget. A family in our ward, the Hanburys, have a Japanese exchange student staying with them for a few weeks. They brought him to church yesterday, and then invited us over for dinner. I was able to watch as Elder Tobe and brother Hanbury--who served his mission in Japan--teach this boy about the church and the restoration of the gospel in Japanese. It was a really awesome experience! They gave him a Japanese Book of Mormon which he said he will read.

Well, that's my week. I hope everybody is doing well. Love you all

Elder Rosier

Weekly Update July 22, 2013

G'day!

I'm not too sure what to write about this week. It was rather uneventful for Elder Tobe and myself. We had a lot of appointments cancel on us this week. It was a little discouraging. I'm sure Elder Tobe just loved coming into an area that gave the first impression of nothing happening.

We spent a lot of time this week visiting with the less-activie families. Last night at one of our appointments I got a little taste of what it might be like when we have the iPads to use when we proselyte. We were visiting a less-active family when a question was raised about Christ's death and ressurrection. We borrowed the husband's ipad to get on mormonchannel.org and watched a few of the bible videos as we taught the family. It was really cool! And super handy for us to use the video as we taught. Hopefully we'll have that advantage with us all the time when we receive the ipads.

We just had about a dozen new ward missionaries called here in Redcliffe ward. Our first corellation meeting with them was yesterday after church. We're going to be trailing a program a member has come up with to help us to receive more referrals from members, and to help encourage member missionary work. The ward mission team is very excited, and so are we!

I hope everybody has a great week! Love you all!

Elder Rosier

Ross wrote the following in is letter to me: "My birthday was rather uneventful. We all came back to the flat around 7:30, and made pizza and watched the Joseph Smith movie. President and Sister Henderson called me right before I went to bed to sing happy birthday to me. We had dinner with the Costellos the night before, and Elder Tobe mentioned that my birthday was the next day, so when sister Costello brought us our cherry-ripe brownies (the best brownies I've ever had, by the way. sorry mum.) for dessert, she had stuck a candle in mine and wrote Happy 21st birthday on the plate. It was very sweet :)"

Weekly Update July 16, 2013

G'day everybody!

 

Well, the last week of the transfer flew by. I have just returned from the transfer meeting today with my new companion, Elder Tobe. His is from a city in Japan near Tokyo.

 

This last week was much of the same. We visited heaps of less-active families, tracted, taught a few people. I'm really sad that I don't have much to write about this week, but nothing too out of the ordinary happened. I guess there is one thing I can mention I was really impressed with this week. The Tapuvai family's (part-member family we found tracting 2 weeks ago) oldest daughter, Aria, came to church on Sunday. She also went to youth last week. It's really awesome to see how in just two weeks time she has gotten very excited about the church again. She told us she has a friend she's going to invite to come to youth and to our lessons with her younger siblings on Tuesday and Thursday. She's also gone out of her way at school to make sure all the LDS girls there know she's a member, too. I hope that we see such excitement from her dad and her brother--the other 2 members in the family--when the football (rugby) season ends.

 

I'm really looking forward with excitement for this transfer! We have a massive ward mission now. A brand new ward mission leader, and a dozen new ward missionaries! Good things will definitely be happening!

 

Have a good week everybody! Love you!

Elder Rosier

Weekly Update July 8, 2013

Hello again!

What a long week this one has been! It seemed like it would never end!

Elder Sualevai and I were very blessed in our efforts this week. Our teaching pool, which only a week or two ago was rather tiny, is expanding rather rapidly! We figure that by the end of this week we should have 10 new investigators from over the last two weeks. This week we found two part-member families that were very happy to see us and have invited us to come and teach their families. One family--the Woodthorpes--we found through our ward list. Only the mum is a member of the church. Her husband told us that missionaires have come around for a long time teaching him and trying to get him baptized, but he's never felt like he was ready to do so. However, he said that he and his wife had recently been talking about wanting to get sealed in the temple, and that maybe this is the time for him to again be taught and get baptized. We will begin teaching him and his two oldest daughters (ages 8 and 9) this week. The other family--the Benetts--we found while tracting. They came over from N-Zed a year and a half ago, but their records are still back there. The father and the two oldest children are members. The mum and dad really want their two youngest taught by missionaries like their two oldest were. They were all really excited to have us come around, and we had a wonderful lesson with them on Thursday. We will be seeing them every Tuesday evening now.

This is the final week of the transfer. It is going to be really interesting to see what happens at the transfer next week. President Henderson arrived in Australia last Monday. We have a zone conference with him on Wednesday. We've heard rumors from missionaries who have already met with him that the ABM will be one of the missions first trialing the iPads and possibly the online proselyting mentioned in the broadcast. We also have heaps of missionaries coming in next week at the transfer; 40+ visa waiters on top of those coming from the MTC. A lot of very exciting things happening for the ABM!

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Rosier

Weekly Update July 1, 2013

G'day everybody!

 

I'm really not too sure what to mention this week. Elder Sualevai and I have been hard at work trying to follow-up with referrals and potential investigators that we've met while tracting and street contacting. This week was feeling rather fruitless up until the latter part of the week. Friday was especially good. We taught the first discussion to a boy named Chris that is the son of a potential investigator that we've tried to set appointments up with on a number of occasions. This was the last time we were going to come and see them. The son was outside when we rocked up, and when talking with him he was asking a lot of questions about why there were so many Christian churches. He converted from Hindu to Christianity a few years ago, but says a lot of his questions still remain unanswered. We meet with him again on Saturday.

 

The world-wide missionary broadcast was awesome, wasn't it? I can really feel the excitement for missionary work right now! I am excited to be in the field at such a time to experience these changes first-hand. There is so much potential for missionary work to skyrocket through the efforts of members! I cannot wait to see what happens over the next year.

 

Sorry to make this so brief. I love you all! Happy Independence day!

 

Elder Rosier