Missionary Work Down Under: Week 30 - Gosnells, Southern River Zone, Western Australia - March 8, 2016

Elder Ramsey from Tonga....in the back is M the Filipino who came to church!

I'd say 70% of the Elders in our Zone are Polynesian and their is a new way we do exchanges where they actually come to our area and stay the night and work for a day instead of us going to their areas. But this is starting to pose a slight issue...THEY EAT LIKE HOGS! I am not kidding unless you specifically tell them to stop eating, I promise they never will. I am about to print out a paper to put on our fridge that says "NO ISLANDERS" on it. haha I have no problem sharing food but when it gets to the point where we are wondering how we are going to fill our stomachs....that's an issue. Imagine. 2 cartons of eggs, 2 cartons of milk, 3 loaves of bread, a carton of chocolate milk, a tub of cookie dough, 6 packages of noodles, a tub of peanut butter, a box of cereal, 4 avocados, all the butter etc.... Elder B and I were just stunned when they left....its ok tho we are putting together a future plan of action. From now on they will not be allowed to enter the kitchen. It will go as follows. 1. They will say that they are hungry 2. Either I or Elder B will enter the kitchen and serve up a plate with an appropriate portion size 3. They will eat. 4. They will ask for more. 5. We say no...no more.
That's simply how it is going to go. haha.

ANYWAYS, I had an experience this week that I always knew would come but never quite thought through how I would handle it....but we went to L's house this past week to visit her. We ended up helping her and her partner D from Ethiopia around the yard. Afterwards, they kindly offered us lunch and we sat down and awaited the food. I was not nervous at all. Elder B and I were just pretty calm just sitting there...but if we knew what was in store we would NOT have been calm whatsoever. L places before us a giant helping of this green goulash on rice. Elder B asked "What is this???" She just responded "meat" haha ohhhhh it was much more than just that and to make a long story short we spent the next 15 minutes absolutely fighting our way through chunks of raw fish and goat and who knows what else....I am going to be honest. Elder B was being such a little girl about it so I was having to HOG down HUGE helpings and since we were eating from the same plate HE EASILY MADE ME DO THE HEAVY LIFTING... haha! As I was feeding and gagging like crazy I just chuckled to myself as I imagined Nelson battling down his Ukrainian food and all the other stories I heard of missionaries eating disgusting meals but I guess the day of reckoning comes for all of us...I'm probably just wimpy because I am in Australia - but it was DISGUSTING! haha.

So we found a new family! They are Filipino and their names are JAND M. They have a daughter named M. We have HIGH HOPES for them! They came to a baptism on Saturday...loved it....and came to all 3 hours of church on Sunday...They are a miracle! We are going over tonight to teach the Restoration....Pray that they will feel the Spirit very strongly. E and C are still a work in progress we just found out one of C's dogs died today so we will go over to see how he's doing. He LOVES his dogs.