Another week gone by

G'day!

Another eventful week has gone by. There's not a whole lot to report this week- Doris is still our investigator, but she's pushed back her baptism. She's dealing with a lot of things lately with her roommate and her family (we fond out she has a husband and children, but they live in America!), so she has some issues to sort out before she can prepare herself for baptism. Hopefully she'll keep letting us come over!

We did meet a lot of potential this week. I met a girl on the train named Sherilyn, and she's golden, but unfortunately she left later in the week to go home to China for holiday break. She said she wants to meet with us again when she gets back, but that's not until March, so it won't be for awhile. We also met a man named Denis, he's also Chinese and is pretty golden as well. Luckily for us he's staying, so we'll get to see him a lot more often! He is agnostic but has a lot of christian friends, and wants to find out for himself if it's true or not. Pretty perfect, wouldn't you say?!

Elder Han and I did quite a bit of finding this week in Strathfield, which is like the little Korea Town of Sydney. I was super happy to be able to finally practice my Korean, but unfortunately it's not where I would like it to be.. haha. I was able to share a message in Korean, but I didn't know what the heck anyone's response was. I think it was a good wake up call for me though, and is really getting me motivated to study harder! Even with the language barrier, we did manage to get in contact with two Korean guys, Min Jae and DK, both of whom don't speak English.. and so we get to teach them!! I'm super stoked about that, because that means I'll get them to teach me Korean in return. Speaking of learning Korean, our Korean Teacher, Shin Ha-seon, left home for Korea yesterday. It was really hard to say goodbye to her, because she had become our really good friend. She promised though that if I ever went to Korea, she'd show me around! I think that settles it- Mom and Dad, better start saving up to go to Korea for the 2016 Olympics!!

One other piece of news you may find funny- I tried baking cookies for mutual on Wednesday. I started making chocolate chip cookies, but we didn't have enough butter, or chocolate chips, or flour.. but I didn't know that until I had already started making them, so I improvised and put some other things in just to try to fix it. I have never realized how convenient mixers are until I tried mixing without one! Needless to say they were more than a little grainy.. anyways I wasn't sure how they were going to taste, but I took them to mutual anyways and turns out they were alright! I was more than a little surprised, but happy that they weren't terrible.. just a little interesting! Haha. I figured it might make Mom proud to know I attempted baking, and that it didn't end in a disaster.. rather unusual for me! 

Other than that, a fairly uneventful week. Here's the Australian culture tidbit of the week: All the bogans (aka country people; hicks; super outback-Australians) say "Fair Dinkin" almost every other word! I'm not even entirely sure what it means, and I don't think they do either, but it's just a slang word they use for everything, good or bad. Example: "This fair dinkin weather is great. I'm so fair dinkin tired I'm gonna rest on that fair dinkin bed, fair dinkin." Make sense? Yeah, it doesn't to me either.. but it's pretty fair dinkin hilarious!

And now for the Spiritual thought. This week especially, Elder Han and I have really been focusing on helping less-actives come back to church, and inviting our investigators to come to church. The scripture we've often shared is Moroni 6:4-6. It talks about the reasons we go to church: to be nourished by the word of God, to talk with and strengthen friends, and to take the sacrament. When we don't go to church, we miss out on these great things, the most important of which is the sacrament. How insignificant it may seem, going to church is one of the most important things we can do to keep us spiritually uplifted and resistant to temptation. Also, through the sacrament we can repent and renew our covenants... sounds pretty great to me. I think if we all really understood what it means to go to church, then there'd be no barrier to big to keep us from getting to the meeetinghouse every week. Just food for thought.

Hope all is well on the other end of the world! Have a great week, and enjoy Thanksgiving! (I almost forgot- isn't it this week??). Get fat on the eats for me!

Love you all,

Elder Easton

Another Week Down Under

Hello Everyone!

This week has had a HUGE amount of rain. It's rained almost every day, and BUCKETS. It's actually been a blessing for the bush fires, but it's also been really wet.. haha. Being the saavy spender that you all know I am, I decided not to buy an umbrella or rain jacket because as soon as I did I know it would stop raining... anyways I've had that logic for about 7 days now, so maybe I'll finally buy one today! 

Oh really quickly- sorry about emailing a day late! It was transfers this week and so our p-day got moved a day later. One of my zone leaders and another missionary in my district finished this transfer, and it was really weird saying goodbye to them! My district leader transfered, but besides those three everyone's still here! I'm glad I get to be with Elder Han still, and I love Summer Hill area, so all is good with me!

Some great news about Doris: we got her back! Elder Han and I decided last week just to stop by and give her some fruit and see what happens, and we ended up teaching a lesson and recommitting her to baptism! It was great news.

On Wednesday we had a "District Activity" to close off our transfer. One companionship in my district is in the Eastlakes Ward, which is a Tongan-speaking ward, and so we got invited to go over for one of their sports nights. I played footie for the first time, and it was so much fun! I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty frightening having giant Tongan men running at you, and for me it was basically dodgeball, except the ball was 50 some odd Tongan men, but still a blast. I also had "O-Ty" for the first time, a slushy drink that was basically milk with chunks and juice of watermelon, passionfruit, cantelope, etc. It was SO GOOD! I can understand why Tongans tend to be... larger, though, because when I sat down to drink, as soon as my cup would even start to look empty they'd take it while asking "Do you want more?" and fill it up no matter what I said. It was pretty funny, and I loved it! The best part about O-Ty is that they made it in a giant storage bin, so there was literally gallons of it, and it was completely gone by the end! Haha! The Tongan people are so loving. I'm so glad I get to experience a million different cultures here!!

My Korean teacher, Shin Ha-seon, leaves for Korea on Sunday, which I'm super sad about! She has helped me so much with learning the language! Hopefully I'll find someone else to submit to teaching us soon. I have actually met quite a few Korean students this week, but with the school year ending for all the unis, everyone's going back home! So finding's been a little tough, but hopefully once summer school gets going there'll be more students to prey on and teach, hehe.

Here's the Australian quirk of the week:

I'm about to get a little personal, but I feel like we're all at that level so it's good. I just can't hold in the strangest thing that I've found so far about Australia- my pee smells so weird! Maybe it's the water or perhaps my diet, but it just smells so strange. So be warned, if you ever come to Australia, you may be surprised at the distinctly different aroma in the bathrooms. TMI? Haha just had to put it out there!

And finally a spiritual thought for the week: 1 Nephi 21:15-16. I love the line "I will not forget thee". Heavenly Father knows who each of are and where we are at in life. He loves us literally so much that it's impossible for Him to forget about us. So turn to Him, because He will always be there. I came across this scripture one night this week where I was kind of feeling a little downhearted and lonely. It's incredible how the Lord works and helps us when we need it most. I have no doubt in my mind that He is real and He lives!

Love you all and talk to you soon,

Elder Easton

Subject: Week 5 Down Under

Another Week flies by!

This week has been a really humbling one for me. Our only two investigators, Monica and Doris, both dropped us this week. As you can imagine it was pretty hard to lose both of them this week, but we are keeping our spirits high! We did meet a man who's super ready for the gospel. His name's Malcolm, and he looks just like Eeyore.. haha. But he's really awesome and committed to be baptized, come to church, and give up smoking all at once! It was pretty incredible to see his faith. Unfortunately we found out he lives in the South Mission, so we have to refer him over to the South Missionaries.. which means we're back to square one. But it's all good- just another chance to start a clean slate!

Another really humbling experience I had was at church yesterday. The sacrament pianist hadn't showed up yet and so they asked me to play some prelude piano, which was no big deal. I played until church began and then was super surprised when they announced that I'D be the sacrament pianist!! I was really confused. So I get up there to play the first song, and it's "Have I Done Any Good". It's one of the hardest songs in the hymnbook, and I'd never played it before, so I totally smashed it. Like badly. It was actually pretty funny, and definitely humbling for me. Thankfully a lady took pity on me and came up and offered to play the rest of sacrament, which I happily obliged to. Later in sacrament I was giving a talk, when I referred to a conference talk in the Ensign and realized- I grabbed the wrong Ensign! I was really flustered and tried to tell the story from memory, which was pretty bad. Here's the funniest part- it actually WAS the right Ensign, I just confused myself up on the stand and got mixed up! Haha. I definitely think Heavenly Father must've been trying to teach me something yesterday!

This week I got to go do Driver's Training to get "certified" to drive a mission vehicle. It was the strangest experience I've ever had. Not driving for 3 months, on top of driving on the opposite side, threw me for a loop! The weirdest parts are that the blinkers and the ignition key-slot are on the other side, but the pedals are still the same. Weird. Thankfully I passed the training! But I won't drive until December.

One other funny thing. There was a former investigator who dropped the missionaries right before I came, but still comes to church and does activities and stuff... it's a complicated situation. Anyways we offered to come by with some cake and then I could get to know her (playing on my newbie-ness to meet with her again, haha). We stopped by this week with the cake, and as we read the label right as we got there... it was Tirimisu Cake, aka chock full of coffee! What are the chances! Haha it ended up all good, she had TimTams so we ate those instead.

So here's the weekly Australian Culture Tidbit: Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE (Islanders, Asians, Aussies) are obsessed with ice cream and canned peaches. I've had it almost everytime we go to someone's house. It doesnt matter what kind of ice cream: I've had it with vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, caramel, anything- and peaches! Haha I'd never had that combination before, but it's actually pretty good.

Okay so two other tidbits: They spell "Tires", "Tyres" and "Curb", "Kerb". Thought those were pretty funny.

And finally for the spiritual thought: Read 3 Nephi 1:6 and then 3 Nephi1:13. This was right before Christ came to the Americas, when the believers were about to be put to death by the non-believers because the prophecies hadn't been fufilled. In verse 6 the non-believers tell the faithful that their "faith hath been in vain." Yet I love the comfort that Christ gives to them in verse 13, to "Lift up your head and be of good cheer". I think there are times in all of our lives where out faith is put to the test- and sometimes it seems like our Savior isn't going to pull through. Even so, I promise that if we continue to put our faith in Christ and to ask for the strength that we need to overcome our challenges and trials (even when we think we can't), that He will reassure us to "Lift up our heads and be of good cheer". I promise that.

Well, love you all and enjoy your week! Don't forget to enjoy the snow for me.

Cheers,

Elder Easton

How many weeks has it been?

G'day! Yet another week has passed, and it's been great! Here's an update on current investigators:

Monica is still Golden. She didn't make it to church yesterday, but still has a super strong desire to learn more. We taught the Plan of Salvation last week and she didn't have any questions!! It just made sense to her... like I said, golden! 

Doris came to church yesterday, and loved it. The whole ward really fellowshipped and talked to her, which was a blessing on High. She's planning on getting baptized at the end of the month, but we've still got a lot to teach her. Pray that she'll continue to understand everything we teach her!

...and that's about it! Elder Han and I have really been trying to increase our teaching pool, but to no avail. Hopefully after some more contacting this week, we'll have more investigators! I did find a potential last week, kind of a fun story. The Zone Leaders borrowed our car for a day so Elder Han and I were using the train and bus. We were in Strathfield (aka Koreatown) and a little old lady came and sat near me at the bus stop. Elder Han was on the phone, so I decided to give it a try and talk to her. Her name's Ki Ju, she's from Seoul and is so nice!! I tried to speak in Korean and she just laughed, but apparently it made an impression. When Elder Han came over she told him (in Korean, so I didn't understand until later) that she thought I was a cute white boy and so she was going to take us out to lunch later in the week. We grabbed her mobile and met up with her a few days later. This time she was with an even older lady, her 80-year sister (still unsure of her name). Ki Ju's sister was KOREAN AS, it was awesome. Anyways these two ladies walked us over to a Korean restaurant and we had lunch. It was delicious Korean food, but kind of awkward. We all just sat there and ate, whenever I tried to talk the conversation died right away... I felt kinda bad about it because when I asked if we could share a message, they said "Call us and do it", so we didn't even talk to them about the gospel.. However, at the end of the meal, Ki Ju said "I'll take you out again next month!". Elder Han told me after that the Ladies were kind of testing us, and we passed! So I guess that was good! Hopefully we'll get to visit them before next month and practice our Korean.. but there's definitely still hope!

Along the lines of the car being gone, you'd be proud to know that we biked to our last appointment that day, and it was an hour away! I actually really enjoyed it, the biking was really fun (Except I had helmet hair.. haha).

Oh! So this week I had my first Bible-bashing experience! We showed up at this referral's house, he was an older man but seemed really nice. Anyways we sat down and he had his Book of Mormon and Bibles on the table and a paper with a bunch of notes... and for the next hour we totally got smashed. He sat down and the first thing he said was "Okay. Convince me Mormonism is truth. What's your argument?". We told him we weren't here to argue, just to testify, which we did. He went off about prophets and other dumb stuff and we just testified again, but he even challenged our testimonies saying that "You can't KNOW it's true because it's based on feelings, not fact" or something. I think his problem was he just didn't believe you could come to know something only by feelings, but rather by logic (He also happened to have a Philosophy degree... joy). Well we took the advice of Joseph and "Got out of there" pretty quickly. It was funny for me, it actually turned out to be a real testimony building experience. It showed to me exactly how Satan works into people to make them "logic out" the truth, to ignore the Spirit because it's not "intellectually correct". I guess he was just a living example of how the wise are the foolish.

Halloween was fun, not as exciting as in the States. On the bright side, Elder Han and I got a brand new car! Our car was the 2nd oldest in the mission, and so they went and bought new ones so ours got phased out. It's a 2013 Toyota Corolla and only had 50 Ks on it when we got it... not to mention that New Car Smell, mmm.

On Saturday night, I probably had the best experience of the week. Hyde Park, the YSA ward in the city, gave Elder Han and I a list of their members who live in our area. Since we are more mobile than the missionaries in the city (they're stuck in a little area), and the YSA has practically no Home Teachers, the bishop asked Elder Han and I to go visit some of the Less Active members and check up on them. After calling down almost the whole list, this girl named Sabrina answered and said she was available that evening if we wanted to stop by, which was really surprising. We planned to teach her about going to church and how it can help us in day-to-day life, since we figured she was probably just less active. We got to her lesson and began talking to her, and she had such a firm testimony. She had been converted like 15 years previous, and was way more knowledgeable than I was in the gospel... needless to say she wasn't less active and seemed to be strong in every area of the gospel. I had no idea why were there. Then I just felt like I should share D/C 4:2. Elder Han read it, about putting your whole heart, might, mind and strength into the Lord's work. Sabrina looked up from the scriptures and had tears flowing down her face. I don't remember what I told her, but I know that whatever I did say, it was exactly what she needed. She later told us that she was really struggling with some trials right now and was really surprised when we called her, because she had been sinking really low that day and needed help. I then told her that the missionaries will always there to be the priesthood she needs (she's a single lady), and I gave her a blessing. Needless to say we were all in tears and it was a very spiritual experience. It amazed me that the Lord really does know each of us and wants to help us- I had no idea when we went over why we needed to be there, but through us He was able to help Sabrina. It was such a humbling experience to be able to have the Lord work through me to bless someone in need; I guess for the first time, I kind of experienced what it means when the scriptures tell us to be an instrument in the Lord's hands. I know that it's experiences like Saturday night that remind me why I'm on a mission.

Well, I love you all lots! Thanks again for all the love and support. The work goes on!

Love Elder Easton

p.s. Spiritual thought for the week: Alma 38:5.

p.p.s. Australian quirk of the week: No one serves ice... like what the heck?!?

Talk to you all in a week!

Another Week Down Under

G'day!

It's hard to believe that I've been in Australia for nearly a month now! Holy smokes! Time sure flies, doesn't it? This week started off great because we all got a "special zone activity" for keeping our driving records clean for a month, haha. We headed down to Darling Harbour and got to see a documentary called "Hidden Universe" on the IMax screen!! It was super fun, but I felt really weird wearing normal clothes and going to a movie theater, ya know? Still fun.

So the most exciting news I have: Our investigator, Angeliki, got baptized on Saturday! It was a wonderful baptism, albeit the water was FREEZING! She was really ready though, it warmed my heart to really begin to see the fruits of our labors and to be reminded of why we do missionary work: to bring others home. Unfortunately on Saturday night, she got really sick, so she didn't come to church on Friday.. haha so she's yet to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost! But other than that everything went smoothly.

Another update on an investigator: Doris committed to baptism this week! We taught her about the Restoration and it all made sense to her, and she said she wanted to get baptized. The Spirit was so strong during our lesson, it was incredible! Her date's set for the 23rd of November so hopefully we'll keep her getting ready for that day. 

As for other incredible teaching experiences, Elder Han and I visit this way less active family every week. During our lesson this week the Spirit was super strong, I'm convinced you could cut it with a knife. We felt super good about our lesson, like probably the best lesson we've ever had. And then a miracle occurred: after a month of visiting them, they came to church FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 10 YEARS. It was incredible- at church everyone was crying and they were crying and it was just wonderful. What a great feeling it is to rejoice in the return of our brothers and sisters!!

On Saturday night we had a ward Trunk-or-Treat party. It was a blast! I'd say it could even rival the ward parties in Utah.. hehe. I got one of the elders to hide in our trunk and when the kids would come for candy, he'd pop out and scare them. It was pretty funny. We have some kind of dreary looking pass-along cards that are in black and white and say things like "What happens after I die?" or "Will our marriage continue after we die?" and morbid stuff like that, so we passed those out to the little kids. To top it all off, I thought I was hilarious and passed out candy canes to everyone, saying "Merry Christmas!". I think I was the only one who thought I was funny, everyone else just thought I was legitimately all mixed up about the holidays. Haha.

Okay so time to talk about Sunday. It was our Ward Conference, and as such there was an enormous feed afterwards, with tons of food and ice cream and all manner of deliciousness. During Sunday School we went to the Korean class, which consists of 3 Korean women and 1 Korean man, and only one of them can speak English.. anyways they loved having us there, but I think they found a little too much joy in picking on me to do things. They kept calling on me and then smirking as I tried to read a sentence or say a thought... but hey, it was super awesome for me because it meant more practice! I actually loved going, just being able to hear them speak even though I knew maybe one word out of fifty. Little steps, right? They were all very gracious to me, however, and invited me back for next week. Hallelujah! 

So there're the highlights of my week. Most of my days so far have been studies in the morning, driving around all day either visiting members, teaching investigators, or going to the park and tracking down the Asians, then coming home and planning. Wash, rinse, repeat. I actually really like it, I'm meeting some sweet as people down here. We get fed about 3 or 4 nights a week which is super nice, oh which reminds me! There's a family who recently moved from Provo in our ward, they had us for dinner the other night and guess what they made? Homemade Cafe Rio! It was like a little taste of home. Loved it.

So time for some weekly Australian quirks:

1. Popsicles are called Iceblocks. Cilantro is Coriandor. Bell Peppers are Capsicum.

2. When there are workers working to cut trees down (like for powerlines and stuff), they put out signs that say "Tree Lopping". It just sounds really funny to me.

3. Sometimes being here feels like a blast into the past. For example the gas pumps aren't digitalized, meaning there are little number things that flip around to count how much gas you have used and then you have to pay inside. Also, credit cards must be a fairly new thing here- most places don't take them! That has really surprised me, especially for food joints and other stores. Also, no one has "Air Con" (AC) here... now I know what it feels like to grow up like Mom and Dad!!

And finally a Spiritual thought for the week. Every day we drive by a billboard sign that says "If you believe you can, you can." It has really gotten me thinking and reminded me of another quote "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you are right". How often do we limit ourselves because we simply think we aren't capable? I know in missionary work it's super easy to do that. Too often I've thought that I'm too new to teach well, too inexperienced to be bold with investigators, or too weak to meet high goals and expectations. But really the only things keeping me back are my own limits. The beautiful thing is that when you strive to follow the Spirit, stay close to the Lord in prayer, and read your scriptures, you can do ANYTHING! I know I'm learning every day that it's true. I challenge everyone reading this this week to take something that you feel you can't do, can't overcome, take it to the Lord and His Atonement, and then tell yourself I CAN! Because I know that indeed you can. 

Well, love you all heaps! God bless and have a great week!

Elder Easton