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!?!