Week 37 - Gosnells, Southern River Zone, Western Australia - April 28, 2016 - Happy days mate!

HEYYYY! so its been a really good week just like all the weeks on the mission:)! SO like you all know by now since you tend to find things out before I even email home about them somehow....haha Elder Nielsen (THE Gifford Nielsen) came and spoke to our mission....IT WAS REALLY GOOD!! He had us come prepared having studied Alma 17-29 and we talked all about it and he just had so many cool insights that I had never thought of before. At the end of the conference he left us with a Delegated Apostolic blessing. I found out while on exchanges with the AP's yesterday that he has NEVER given an entire mission a blessing in his life and he has done TONS of mission conferences...SO it was pretty cool he just kept saying that our mission was a very special group and that awesome things are gonna happen here so that pumped me up!!!  Then that night we traveled back to the mission office and had a leadership training meeting with Elder Nielsen. We had dinner with him and President Fife first out in the backyard of the mission home a nice Snag on the barbie! it was cool it was just a few of us missionaries back there and Elder Nielsen was just talking to each of us. He asked what high school I went to and I told him Lone Peak. Then he asked if I played sports so we just sat there and talked back and forth about football for a little and he asked if I wanted to play when I got home. He was SO COOL! But the Leadership meeting was awesome too. Something cool that he said was this "I have toured a lot of missions and let me tell you something! You have the best Mission President in the world...Then he said go home tonight and pinch yourselves because you all have it so good here". Haha... I honestly fully believe him. President Fife is the most fearless non-stop full throttle man I have ever met! He does not slow down ever.

Something you will laugh at- Elder Brinkerhoff and I were dishing up our plates at dinner and President Fife was just talking to us and I tried to crack a joke that I thought would be funny but he shut me down sooooo hard! Hahaha. Elder B and I  have been laughing about it since. (I'm not really laughing... I'm actually embarrassed...)

Earlier this week we went and picked up 2 fresh Tongans from the airport and they stayed with us for the night. That was pretty fun.  

As far as our investigators go, we are working with 2 part member families. They are both interested but they both have the same issue -they are way to involved in their work and they are super busy. E finally just told us he will wait to be baptized when he is 18 in December....so we will continue getting him to church. We have been using so many different tecniques to try to get referrals -none yet but we will continue trying! We have been traccting a lot lately and we have soooo many potentials and investigators but none who are steadily progressing. Oh, we got this old man named T to come to church with us.  He is Seventh-day Adventist but he might come again this next week. When we taught him at his house he fed us toast and jam. I kid you not I had like 15 pieces. He just kept bringing them out! Good thing I bought some laxatives while I was in Kalgoorlie:) Haha! Love you all! Have a good week!!!

Elder Cordner

I don't think the the Horseman is Elder Cordner, but who knows??

Yummy pigs tail I had. My favourite part was the thick bristly whiskers.

After the Temple today.

In the city on the way back from the Temple today.

Week 36 - Gosnells, Southern River Zone, Western Australia - April 18, 2016 - HOWDY!

Good to hear from all of you!!! I loved seeing all the pictures of the twins looking top notch for the night of all nights! haha. Elder B and I were laughing about that picture that woman sent you mom. That guy was the first ever on my mission that actually chased us down to talk to us! haha It was hilarious!

Some cool things happened this week. We have been seeing a less active family for a while now. We have a really good relationship with them they have a huge piece of land and R parks all his big semi trucks in his backyard. We were helping him feed all his pigs and everything. We had an awesome lesson with them and they came to church for the first time in so many years it was SWEET! They came on the perfect Sunday too! The talks were pretty much speaking directly to them...  

Big R!

Earlier this week I was tracting with our District Leader Elder Arieta from Manila and it was super late, like 8 o'clock, but we had nothing else to do. After tracting, we started biking home and a house just caught my eye for some reason so we stopped and we knocked on the door and this Asian guy answered and we talked to him for a while then we just asked if we could introduce ourselves to anyone in the house (because we heard people joking and laughing). He agreed and we went in and shared the restoration with like 8 university students from Taiwan. It was awesome! We are looking to go back soon and continue to help them develop a faith in a true and living God.

So we met these kids outside of their house and we were talking to them for a while. We ended up going in and teaching them a lesson but they were just smoking pot the whole time. It was just a house filled with kids our age just going hog wild. Funny enough tho -we got a ride for two of them for church and we actually got them there for the full 3 hours! We were nervous because they are such a hostile bunch haha! One of them started blasting his rap out of a big old speaker in his backpack in the middle of church.....but (VISITORS WELCOME) is plastered on our front door so no one was too mad:)  We went to this house last night that was just like those houses on "Horders Buried Alive" I kid you not, no exaggeration....there was crap piled up in every inch of the house with parrots flying around and dogs rummaging through everything. When we got home a cochroach fell out of my shoe when I took it off. Haha!

I love you all! I won't be emailing you until Thursday next week because we are going to go to the Temple.

Every morning when we wake up we are influenced by two Forces, One of those forces deliberately wants to murder us spiritually and physically. He entices us with lies and half truths. He wants all men to be miserable like unto himself. The other force is Our Loving Father in Heaven who influences us through the Holy Ghost. He wants us to grow and develop to become like him. He wants us to have Peace, Confidence, and Happiness in this life and in the life to come. He desires to give us ALL THAT HE HAS. Choose which FATHER will be yours. If we constantly become entangled and lost in the distractions and sins of the world then we are listening to and have chosen the wrong DAD! Invite the Holy Ghost to be your constant companion by the way that you live so that you can listen and obey his loving voice:) I Know That we are all Children of God, but Satan desires to sift us as wheat and have us as his children, tell him to go to h#%$...(oops! -had to edit that.) HAVE A GOOD WEEK:)

ELDER CORDNER

These guys are from India. They told us they came across on a boat and they were the only survivors.

Week 35 - Gosnells, Southern River Zone, Western Australia - April 11, 2016 - Holiday's Over!

On the mission General Conference is such a nice little break and a time to spiritually FEAST. I loved it so much! I know that the prophets and apostles direct Christ's Church on the earth today. I know that they have been called of God. If you deny that, I would suggest the spirit has ceased to strive with you....haha just kidding! but idk how people can deny such up front truth and heart-felt testimony! I know I cannot. I'd say my top 3 favorite talks were 1. Elder Hallstrom's talk about the saints in Africa singing 'How Firm A Foundation'  2. Elder Eyring's opening address and 3. of course, Elder Holland's, but I loved all of them so much! It was just the best weekend.

So, things have been going good out here in Gosnells! We are teaching a part member family from New Zealand. We are going over tomorrow to share the Restoration. One of the big stumbling blocks is that no one gets married here. They just call each other "partners" so often times we have to help them understand the law of chastity - which is a toughy haha.

We found an awesome Chinese family with 1 little girl. They are Christian and are looking for a church. We spent some time with them yesterday and they have a lot  of questions but they are very open to attending our church next Sunday. We have 1 Chinese family in the ward so we will be looking to fellowship with them as soon as possible. 

We had Zone Conference this last week. President Fife is the absolute best. He is such a beast! He talked a lot about faith and how we can pray effectively with faith. He also (being a former institute teacher) taught us a lot of doctrine that missionaries normally don't understand properly. Anyways it was a good zone conf.

I saw all the pics of the hike. (Mitch's dad and siblings went hiking in the Grand Canyon for a few days during their spring break) It looked like so much fun! I know that before I know it I will be back with all of you, so I need to give everything while I still can! I love you all thanks for the prayers you offer in my behalf. Have an awesome week back to real life after your break:)

Elder Cordner

Mitch answered some questions I asked him.

We are in one ward.  Western Australia is very wide spread.  In fact, it is the largest constant span of people and homes in the entire world (land mass wise) but we are in one ward of like 200 members with 3 other sets of missionaries.  The members here are very warm and good.  We take members to the lessons with us.  I am sorry my letters are not too descriptive.  A LOT happens that I don't say anything about.  Sorry!  It is fall now and it is cooling down.  We love it so much.  It's been raining the past few days.

Elder B going ANIMAL!

                                 

Week 34 - Gosnells, Southern River Zone, Western Australia - April 4, 2016 - Life's Good - God's Good!

I heard Conference was GLORIOUS. WE are pumped for it down here! Can't wait! Could you imagine if everyone in the world knew of the true importance of General Conference? A ticket to the conference center would cost 500,000$$$. We are going to try to get all of our gators and less actives to at least come to a Sunday session.

We made a little progress with E this week. He told us that he might just decide to be baptized anyways despite what his uncle said. We had a good chat with him, but then we went by to wake him up for church and he said he had to go pick something up for his mom. But we are doing well. We did a lot of tracting this last week.  Got some new people to go follow up on so we will see how that goes!

I don't have much else to say. The work keeps going and so do we!

I want you guys to know I love being a missionary...I know it is what I need to be doing right now in my life. I can't imagine what I would be like if I never came out here....God is so GOOD:)

Elder Cordner

Be careful Elder Cordner!

Australia in one picture.

Our neighbor ran over our beloved little garden gnome.
This is all we found of him the next morning.  He left this paper.  Haha!

Perth has cool art on a lot of the buildings.  This one is sweet.