A New Beginning

Goodbyes are the worst.

Yes, I have indeed been transferred! I'll let you know about the new place I'm at in a second, but first I'll fill you in on the happenings of my past week.

It was a pretty good week. I got to go on trade-offs to the UNSW campus elders, they're like undercover missionaries- they just wear normal clothes and walk around on the uni campus! It was a super fun experience, and I even met a few potential Koreans out of it.

Our investigators continue to do great, we GOT A BAPTISMAL DATE! His name's John, Chinese Student and should be getting baptised mid-April. Ray is also doing really well, we got her to church on Sunday which is a really big step for her.

Friday we found out most of the transfer details, and President told me I'd be leaving Summer Hill. So, I spent my weekend visiting those members I really wanted to say goodbye to. Man, it was a lot more difficult than I'd imagine. It felt like saying goodbye from home all over again- all these people I've spent the last 6 months with truly have become my family. They feed me, watch out for me, rejoice in my successes and console in my failures. I've really come to love Summer Hill, and the members of it!!! The hardest part for me to say goodbye to has been the Primary, actually. Sunday was a killer music time, the children sang so strong and powerfully. The Primary presented me a goodbye card, with all of their names signed on it. For the closing song we sang "Army of Helaman", only Sister Dalman (the Primary Chorister) played it and had me conduct... it was such an incredible experience! The kids stood and sang with the Spirit so incredibly it brought me to tears. I'm going to miss that wonderful little Primary.

With all the sadness of saying "See ya Later" to my Summer Hill family, I have some exciting news about where I've been transferred to! It's to the exotic city of...

Radiator Springs! Just kidding, although it may very well be the Australian equivalent. I've been banished (er, transferred) to the little town of Tamworth, located over 500 km north of beautiful and bustling Sydney. It's in the Coffs Harbour Zone of the mission, the very top of New South Wales.

Here's some info to give you an idea about where I'm at: 

Yesterday from transfers, we drove 4.5 hours up the coast to Port Macquaire, where we stayed the night. 

This morning I drove 3.5 hours west through a winding mountain pass in the Australian Rainforest.

Tamworth is in a little desert valley in between mountains... and it's hot. Imagine St. George, but less glitzy. 

AND I'M STOKED TO BE HERE!!! 

This place is literally in the middle of nowhere, but I am excited for an authentic Aussie experience. The work's going to be a lot different, and I probably won't see another missionary for another 5 weeks- everything's too spread out, so we don't even do trainings in person, but on the phone- but I know there's a reason God's sent me out here. I'm a little nervous, but excited to dig my heels down in the sandy dirt. After all, most of the missionaries up here stay for at least 6 months.. haha..

Speaking of companions, my new comp is Elder Ripley, an English Gent from York, UK! He's a riot, this'll be a really fun and interesting transfer. Hopefully we won't go too crazy, just the two of us. He has informed me there are actually a handful of Asians up here, working in the meat factories- and I sure can bet there's got to be at least one Korean! 

So yep, here I am, on another leg and another adventure of this missionary experience. It's going to be a lot different, but I'm ready. After all, "Come what may and love it".

Have a Great Week, and love you all heaps!

Cheers,

Elder Easton

p.s. Aussieism of the week: "Copper" is their nickname for the Police. But they don't actually say "Copper"... imagine it more like "Coppah". Hope you enjoy!

Photos: 

1. Me and the Summer Hill Primary

2. I got to visit the Harbour Bridge (er.. the scenic side) at least, before I was cast out!

Love you all :)

Photo update

Last Week of the Transfer

Good Morning (Well for me)!

This is going to be the last week of the transfer... I've been in Summer Hill for 4 transfers now, we'll have to see what happens at the end of this week! Fingers crossed!!

Our investigators are doing alright. Jim has dropped us, apparently his marriage is really rocky right now and the church is a big fighting point between him and his wife, who's a member. Hopefully we'll get in to see them, though, and help them sort things out.

Jo and the other uni students are doing well, the real highlight this week has been John. We saw him on Wednesday and he even came to a baptismal service on Saturday! Which is a huge step, in my opinion. He really liked it and so this week we'll be trying to set a date with him.

Ray, the 80 year old, also came to the baptism. It was really fun, she saw me playing the piano for the service and told me after that she plays piano! She was actually one test away from getting her degree, but her piano teacher died a few days before so she never took the test... but needless to say, she's really good at piano! So I'll be going over this week and we'll get to play some duets together at the nursing home. Really looking forward to that.

Really cool experience last night. We were biking around Ashfield last night, with no appointments or anything, so I committed myself to talk to everyone I rode by on the streets. A lot harder than it may sound, especially with the awkward dismounting of the bike everytime, but I still did it. And what incredible miracles! We found 3 new investigators and over 10 potentials! Even if we hadn't found anyone interested, it was still amazing how everytime I tried talking to someone I felt stronger and stronger with sharing the gospel, like I was being fortified or something. For the first time I really desired to share with every single person, even the dodgy looking ones, and I didn't really care whether their reaction was bad or good- just as long as I got to give them a taste of the Restored Gospel. So yeah it was really humbling, so grateful for that experience!

Along those lines, Sydney has literally flooded with Nepalese- I have no idea why, but 1 out of every 3 people I talked with was Nepalese. Seriously. And I'd never even met anyone from Nepal until this weekend! Interesting, I'll have to let you know if they tend to be receptive or not. How exciting, eh?!

Aussieisms of the week: I know I'm not a genius in grammar, but these two words seem to really stick out to me as being different than how I'd say them:

1. "Orientated" instead of "Oriented" (i.e. I am a gospel orientated person)

2. "Learnt" instead of "Learned" (i.e. I learnt a lot in Sunday School today)

As for a spiritual thought, we had a zone conference this week and President Howes' training was called "Is it the Pain or the Plan?", in relation to trials and challenges and how we can know if trials we are having are because God is making us stretch or as a result of our own disobedient actions. Pretty cool training. One thing that stuck out I personally liked is that he said something along the lines of how we can know God loves us because He's giving us hard things to go through, to refine us and prepare us for eternal life. If He didn't love us, He'd let life be easy, for we would never grow or become the people we are meant to be. Just a thought.

Well, love you all heaps! Have a great week!

Elder Easton

p.s. Photos:

1. Elder Evans and myself! A member took us to the super fancy Garden Buffet off of Darling Harbour! yum!

2. Me and the Nielsens. Cool story- quite often members come to our ward who are on Cruises around the islands and Australia. Yesterday, a whole herd from Utah were there, including this hilarious lady named Teri. Teri's son-in-law turns out to be my first Seminary Teacher, Brother Smith from Butler Middle! Small world! In this picture, I'm with the Nielsons from Herriman. The Nielsons know Uncle Mark and Aunt Sharon, and their son is good friends with Jake! Jake and Ashley even used to live in their ward? Small World, am I right!?!

Here Again

Hello Again!

Another hectic week has flown by down under, and all is well. I'll start off with our investigators:

Jim- coming along really well, still no baptismal date but we continue to see him weekly and at church.

Ray- the sweetest little 80year old there ever was. Big progress- she told us she's seriously considering joining the church, which is awesome considering she only wanted to "learn more, in an academic sense". So cool how the Lord works.

Jo, Paul, Michael, John, Candy, Velinda, Yosuke- basically the same, uni students with the busiest schedules, or so they say. We got Michael to church though, which was a HUGE blessing!

And the rest we didn't see last week, they're all "Busy" (I hate that excuse the very most).

But yeah, the work is truly hastening! It's awesome to get to be a part of it!

The other Elders in Summerhill just had two baptisms, have two this weekend and two next weekend.. aka the pressure's on for Elder Evans and I to start pickin' it up. I hope we can start rolling too!

Some dissapointing news, last week we met with the Korean girl I found in the street and she actually was meeting with missionaries of another faith as well, and had chosen to learn from them instead... I was a little dissapointed, especially because I felt if I were only better in Korean it might've been different. Anyways we're on our way home and run into a recent convert, Pam, who wanted us to call her old classmate and invite him to learn more, and he just happened to be Korean! While we were talking to Pam in the streets, I saw a girl look back at me a few times, so I ran up and talked to her- turns out she is a LA member, Korean girl who was baptised a few years ago! So we set up an appointment to see her. Not thirty minutes later, I was walking down the street and ran into a Korean man and woman and got to chat with them! It was surely not a coincidence that those three things happened, in an area not known for having any Koreans at all. I knew it was Heavenly Father letting me know he was aware of how I'd been feeling, and that I was not to give up trying my best. It was seriously one of the simplest and yet most incredible miracles I've had in awhile. Ah, isn't He the best?! I may not be able to teach well in Korean, but I can sure as heck say "hello"! And I think that's all the Lord wants of me- to do what I can and let Him take care of the rest.

A funny experience that happened yesterday- 

We were sitting in the car planning our route of travel when I saw a crooked, wrinkly old woman wobble out to the street and try to wave down every car that passed. I thought it was curious, so I got out to talk to her, to realise she was sobbing and wailing, screaming as loud as she could (which wasn't much) at each car that drove by. Of course I ran over to her and asked if everything was okay. She motioned me over to her side, grabbed my hand to lean on and began guiding me to her house. I tried talking to her but she didn't speak English, besides that her sobs and moanings were about the only thing I COULD understand. She managed to get out that she was Lebanese but that was about it. Anyways of course my mind was trying to figure out what could warrant such wailing- was her house robbed? Is her husband having a heart attack right now? Is there someone dead in her house? That was honestly the magnitude of her crying, that I would think that. We got to this tiny little house, and she led us through her front room, her bedroom- I was looking on the bed to see if anyone was lying there, but no dice- and took us to the door of the bathroom. I opened it slowly, taking a breath before facing what was waiting inside.. to see nothing but a toilet, sink, dryer and washing machine. Wait what? And yet when she looked, her wailing intensified, and she walked in and started motioning to her washing machine. We looked at the floor, and saw that it had flooded a little, but the water was all draining through, well, the drain. All that commotion for.. a washing machine? And yet there it was, plain as day, what she'd been crying about. Needless to say we checked her washing machine and tightened everything up, made sure it wasn't still flooding, and tried to communicate with her. She understood nothing except that we were from America, afterwhich she started praising America and kissing our hands. Pretty weird. We showed her a picture of Jesus on a pass-along card, and she started kissing it, then pushing it to our chests, then kissing the picture again. I literally didn't know what we were supposed to do... haha. Eventually I found her phone and dialed one of the numbers which was saved in the directory and managed to get ahold of the lady's daughter, who thankfully spoke English and sorted everything out with her mom over the phone. It all worked out; I just have to say it was one of the strangest (and most anti-climactic) situations I've ever been in.

Aussieism for the week: "Shemozle". Any guesses on what it means? It's used to explain a situation, like "That meeting was a shemozle" or "My life is a shemozle right now!". Think you've got it? It means "A bit of a mess", "Chaos" or "totally turned around". It's an interesting one, eh?

As for a spiritual thought, I'd suggest checking out D&C 128: 22-24. Simply beautiful.

Well, that's all folks! Have a great week and hopefully you'll hear from me again in 7 short days.

Much Love,

Elder Easton   

 

p.s. the photos: My first Kangaroo burger!

Some of the Zone and Sister Feil, the Office Lady. She's the best!

Hello Again!

Hello again, everyone!

Another fantastic week has passed by down under. And you know why it was so great? Because I celebrated my birthday! Whoo hoo! I'm officially an old fart.

Mom and Dad, thanks for the birthday package- it came right on time! I loved the treats, thank you so much! My birthday was pretty much smash. My companion made me breakfast, which was super nice, and then we had trade-offs scheduled with the Travelling Elders (I'll tell you more about them in a second). Anyways we ended up doing street contacting most of the day, and proved to be pretty successful! We added a few new student investigators, and even picked up 3 formers! So blessings for sure. I also had a great birthday lunch, thanks for shouting mom and dad- it was, of course, Korean bulgogi. Mmmm, my favorite. Unfortunately I couldn't find any Meyugook, which is this seaweed soup Koreans have on their birthdays. I'll have to let you know if I find a store that sells it!

So about the traveling elders. There were 2 Japanese elders in my mission who had to end a few months early in order to get into uni back home, apparently it's a really strict system. Anyways, they spent this last transfer going on 3-day exchanges with all the district leaders in the mission, and so last week they came and met with me! It was pretty great. They had some really awesome ideas for the area, and I'm excited to see what changes will come because of it. I'll have to let you know what happens! (P.S. the elders went home yesterday!)

Other miracles- I FOUND A KOREAN TO TEACH! Like, this is a huge miracle! Her name is Joy and she in on working holiday, so has heaps of time to meet with us. Please please please pray for her, I'm really excited for the potential there, and most importantly because, well, SHE'S KOREAN! Christmas Miracle.

As for the other investigators, they're doing alright. We've been having to do a few "Do-or die" lessons, as they call them, because many of our investigators are what we call "Eternigators", meaning they've been taught everything many times and still won't commit. We haven't dropped anyone yet, but I have a feeling we'll be having more make-or-break lessons soon. We did TRIPLE our teaching pool, which is super exciting. The Uni has finally started and so I'm ready to go harvest the fresh new crop of Asians.

And perhaps my favourite miracle of the week- we received a headquarters referral for a young couple that lives in the city, on Liverpool St. We went to the address... to find out there was no building 158. We walked around and around it, but no, the address was faulty. Pretty dissapointing. Walking back to the car, an old Isreali couple asked for directions, and we ended up walking them to their hotel. They weren't too keen, but as we helped them find their hotel... we found a second Liverpool St! Who'd've thunk! And, of course, on this street there was in fact a number 158. They weren't home, but we left our contact info so hopefully we'll be hearing from them soon. I know without a doubt that helping the old couple was inspired.. someone really wants this couple to learn, that's for sure.

So needless to say, my week has been great. I've seen heaps more miracles that I don't have time to share, but I can share this- I know that they really ARE miracles from God, and that He really does live and loves each and every one of his children. This truly is His work, and it's hastening!! How wonderful to get to play a part in such a marvelous work.

Much love,

Finally-19-year-old Elder Easton

 

P.S. Aussieism of the week: "You looked nekid". No, not naked.Nekid.. apparently a slang word for tired. At least I hope so.

 

P.P.S. A Few other things I forgot to mention-

A Recent Convert had her birthday on the 28th, and so she threw us a combined birthday party! Pictures to follow.

Stake Conference was on Sat/Sun, and I got to sing in the Institute Choir. Loved it!

...And that's all for now, folks!