Times in Tamworth 18

This has been a great week! I am really loving working with Elder Tavalea. We get along really well, and the work is truly pushing forward. This week I was able to check a few things off the Australian bucket list. On Monday we went hiking up the Moonbi Mountains, and we saw and even touched an echidna! That was not even the best part- the member with us took us up a hidden way to look at some ancient Aboriginal hieroglyphics. It was incredible. The paintings are estimated to be over 1,000 years old, and all the people that live in the Moonbi's are keeping it mum because they don't want it excavated out and put in a museum. So I was definitely lucky to get to see it. You know how the Grinch's heart grew three sizes at once? Well that's definitely how I felt about my stomach last week. In an effort to help us experience even more Aussie things, a less-active member fed us twice in one day- for lunch, we had Emu egg! and for dinner, Ox Tail soup. The Egg was actually pretty nice, although the Ox Tail was a bit too chewy for me. Following those massive feeds, we had another dinner with our investigator, Matt- we were really blessed to have so much food that day, but boy was I stuffed! Speaking of Matt, here's an update on our current investigators: Matt: He's going awesome. We had his whole family in the living room for the first time, which was a miracle considering Matt's biggest concern is having his family not follow his footsteps in the church. We had a great evening and invited them to the Ward Party this Saturday, and they all committed to come! Chris, Amanda and Patrick: We've had a struggle with them this week. They were originally meant to be baptized on July 26th, but they still haven't come to church and so we had to push it back to August 16th. Still exciting that they want to be baptized, but it was especially difficult because we saw them Saturday night and they promised to come to church, but then yesterday they never showed up... but that's okay! We won't give up hope. It's all in the Lord's plan, right? We had a great time with them on Saturday though, they fed us a nice dinner, then we played some trivia games and ended the night with a lesson. Memorable for sure :) Amy: Amy is a 16 year old girl that is currently living in a refuge. She met one of our members who was staying there as well, and the member has been teaching her about church and bringing her to church for about a month. Anyhow we set a baptismal date for August 16th with her!! Hooray! We're really excited for how she's progressing, and feel blessed to get to teach her. Speaking of baptisms, we had a missionary miracle of sorts this week- A Less-Active member has been coming back to church for about 6 months now, and has an 8 year old son who desperately wants to be baptized. Well the son, Jacob, set the date himself to be baptized the day before his 9th birthday. Well his Grandpa is baptizing him, and can't make it until the following weekend, so Jacob will be 9 when he's baptized... which means he'll be a convert baptism, aka he'll be a missionary baptism! Heck yeah! It was great for us because it means he gets to be our investigator and we get to teach him now, which will be really fun! This week Heavenly Father taught me a lesson about faith and preparation. We have been advertising for English Class for about a month and nobody has ever come, so this week I didn't even bother preparing a lesson because I didn't think we'd have anyone to teach. Well lo and behold, Heavenly Father sent me some humility in the form of Alex! We were just about to pack up when we saw someone pull into the Church car park and met Alex, a young man from Taiwan, who knew almost no English. I did my best as a fumbled through an impromptu English lesson, then we invited him to come to church because it'd be more English practice- and he came! I'm humbled to know the Lord blesses us even when we're doubting. I will definitely hope for the best from now on!! Overall, we can really feel the work begin to hasten. It makes us missionaries so happy when we have people to teach- and the Lord has certainly been blessing us with that. I feel as a missionary, the most important thing we can be doing is aligning ourselves to Heavenly Father. That means everyday I have to constantly remind myself to be exactly, freely obedient, and to remember why. It also means being completely in tune with the Spirit. It's certainly a refining process, and I've got a whole lot more to do, but I'm so grateful to see how everyday the Lord is molding my companion and I from awkward, uncertain boys into powerful teachers of Jesus Christ. I am so so thankful to be a part of it. For a spiritual thought, Elder Tavalea and I have been reading together and teaching a lot from Mosiah 18. It's about the Waters of Mormon and the people Alma baptized there. I particularly like verse 30- it's talking about how the people will forever cherish the Waters of Mormon, because they'll remember it's there that they covenanted with the Father through baptism. I think it explains perfectly how we missionaries feel about every area we get to serve in. I love it. And an Aussieism. Because it's been getting freezing cold here, we have been invited over for roast dinners more and more often and I've discovered a few things. First, Australians call squash pumpkin. Like instead of roasted butternut squash, it's butternut pumpkin. Secondly, I don't know if it's only me who had never had this, or if it's not really American, but in Australia when they cook a pork roast they make crackling or crackle, which is the pork skin rubbed over and over in oil and salt and baked.. holy smokes it's good! It tastes like bacon but a million times better... yum. Well I love you all heaps and hope you have a great week! Transfers is coming up this next week, so the next time I email I'll know- I hope hope hope I stay in Tamworth with Elder Tavalea. I love it here! Talk to you soon, Elder Easton