Week 19

Well okay family, here we are. It's a week before Christmas and all through the flat.... just kidding i don't know what to rhyme with that. OH SNAP THAT WAS ACCIDENTAL. hahahaha wow, that was amazing. 

Okay so this week was an interesting one. Curious. very curious. Just kidding but so on sunday of last week i went back to the flat after church with stomach pain and a fever and wicked diharea (however you spell that) so i didn't do much that day, then on monday i was feeling a lot better so we went to the chapel and played basketball.

Because i was sick we didn't get to do a ton of work this week, which stunk. I've decided i hate being in a car. I never get to talk to people when i'm driving around. Yesterday we decided to walk instead of drive and we talked to HEAPS of people! We met a chinese family on the street but they only spoke cantonese and they weren't interested in speaking english to us... I was so gutted. The one chinese family in camden and they don't speak mandarin and they gave us the cold shoulder! haha oh well. Another will come along.

Our car is supposed to be coming this week and our flat should be ready before christmas. I'm getting sick of being in that tiny flat with four elders. If you took our front room, dining room, and Kitchen, you would have an area bigger than our flat. It's tiny.

We got a referral from Bishop for a part-member family that he married a couple months ago that moved into the outskirts of our area. Since we have the car we will drive out and see them. I'm praying it turns into something because we could really use an investigator right now. Part member families are the best because it's automatic fellowship for them.

My chinese is getting better. I've learned all the things i've been saying wrong and having a native speaker as a companion is nice because i'm learning how to sound like a native. That doesn't mean i do okay. When you talk to me on christmas i will probably sound about like i did when i was leaving the MTC but it will get there. i'm still working on it.

How are we wanting to do the recorder? do i just send you the memory chip in the mail? or should i email the files? I don't have very much, but there is a little bit i could send you guys. I will figure out what time i'm going to skype you guys sometime this week and let you know next p-day. although, i'm not sure how we are doing email because it's our mission christmas conference next week.

We were told that we would be going to the temple this week, but then at the last minute they canceled on us and told us that it was a mistake of the APs. I was so bummed. but we are going to Flip out today for zone P-day. it's like airborne or jump on it. I'm so flippin excited.

K love you guys. Hope your days are being merry and bright. Lots of Love.

-Elder Tingey

This is Christmas in Camden (our ward christmas party). Hope you are having fun shoveling the driveway! Maybe not having me there will get you to buy a snowblower(i look weird because we had just been playing touch rugby so i'm out of breath and my shirt is untucked)

Someone tied one of those creepy troll dolls in a tree. Only in camden.

Week 18

New Companion!

Good morning from The Land Down Unda!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week and not missing elder Tingey too much. This week was very eventful with picking up the new missionaries. My new companion is......(drumroll please)........ Elder Cheng! Mom wants full name so it's Cheng Zi Hao. If you haven't guessed yet, he is from China itself! A city called Cheng Du. President Lew kept his promise that my next companion will be a Chinese speaker! He's 20 years old and got baptised 2 years ago. It's cool because people in China that want to be baptised have to go to Hong Kong and usually they get all the missionary lessons in one day and get baptised that night. Elder Cheng started with the missionaries at 10:00 AM and then got baptised at 8:00 PM. amazing story. He is a great elder and we laugh all the time. He is learning english and he has a great attitude about it and i have loved the past week even though i feel completely overwhelmed with the whole training thing. Elder Grant's companion is from Hong Kong, which is great for Elder Cheng because he has someone to talk to in the flat. We laugh a lot because my chinese is so bad. Oh well. Hahaha it's the only way i'm going to learn the language.

I was excited to see elder randall at the new missionary meeting, but he wasnt' there!:( he didnt' get his visa and now he's in portland Oregon. hopefully he gets here before the 23rd so that i can see him at our christmas conference. If no, i guess i will just have to see him when i see him.

Because we had to split the area my teaching pool was drasticaly reduced. Elder Grant and Elder Wu are teaching dean, but we are teaching Jimmy still. Jimmy is doing well. he's hard to catch, but he wants to get baptised, but he wants to talk to his parents first and make sure they are okay with it. that might be a problem, though because his parents are strong efakasar members (not sure if that's spelled right, but its the samoan cultural religion)  we are praying they are okay with it. We have to do a lot more finding of new investigators so if anyone can remember good ideas that worked from their mission i would love to hear them.

This week I read through section 84 of the Doctrine and covenants and verse 119 really jumped out at me. There are times when I feel like I'm doing this work alone and that nobody cares about Camden, but if i just hold on a little while longer, i see the Lord's hand in this work. I love being able to be a part of the work at this time. Things are accellerating and everyone can feel it. I just need to take care of my part of the vineyard.

Love you all and can't wait to talk to yous at Christmas! By the way, I found a member's home to Skype at so what time do you want to do it? They said they will be home pretty much all day so whenever you want to should be fine. Sorry if this is too short, ask me questions if you want to know anything else.

Love,

Elder tingey

Week 17

So here we are. 

P-day is here again. ya know how usually i say nothing really happened this week? Ya, that's not the case for this week...

Friday we went over to the Croft's for dinner because it was thanksgiving in America and they thought i would want to celebrate it. haha so while you were probably looking through newspapers for adds for black friday i was having my thanksgiving feast. That was super nice of them and since costco just opened like 20 min away, sister croft bought me a container of those peanut butter pretzel things! oh i was so excited. MEMBER LOVE. That is why missionaries are told to work closely with the members! hahaha Gotta love it.

SO. transfers were this week. On saturday we got a call from our district leader telling us that we both were not getting transfered, which wasn't much of a surprise since President had already told us that. So we go to lunch (Charcoal chicken right under our flat. ITs delicious and the lady there knows what i'm going to order since we go there so often) and Elder grant pulls out the phone and goes a little bit pale. He tells me we have a missed call from president. We go back to the flat and return the call and he asks elder grant to put it on speaker phone and then proceeded to ask both of us to train this next transfer. 

WHAT????????? I just started laughing. hahaha so I'm training next transfer! We pick them up tomorrow and Camden will have four elders now instead of two. And until we get a new flat we are shoving into the one we've got. but yeah, so that's big news. I've been out 8 weeks and now i have to train a new missionary. Good luck to me! hahaha it's going to be fun. but ill get to go see elder Randall come in! and maybe even train him! hahaha That would be awesome. so i guess just pray for me to not stuff up too bad and ruin this kid's mission.... 

Also, we received word that we will be able to Skype for Christmas! Not sure if that's a good thing cuz you'll be able to see how chubby i've gotten... hahah just kidding. i still havent' gained weight just so you know. But yeah. skype for christmas for an hour. So i'll do it on the day after christmas for me so that it will be christmas for you guys. Not sure of what time yet, but i will let you know as soon as i find out details.

We went on trade-offs again this week and i was with elder Arbado, elder fiu's companion. He's a funny guy from the phillippeans. He knocked on a door that he said was a member's, but then looked at me all horrified and said, "wait, wrong house, wrong house!" but he kept knocking and i was trying to walk away but he was laughing and then made me do a door approach to this kid. Turns out it really WAS the member's home and he was just messing with me. hahahaha i was so mad. 

I met Scott Tingey's companion on Sunday. Can't remember the name, but it was Scott's last companion and i think scott trained him. He told me they called scott the prophet because he was so diligent. Said Scott never once showed any sign of trunkyness even though it was is last two transfers. Elder Agrippa or something was his name, maybe. It was obvious that he thought really highly of elder Tingey

We are getting the new car when we pick up the new misisonaries and the new car will have a USB port so i can play music from my USB so if anyone wants to figure out how to send music over email i would love some religious christmas music and if we have any mission appropriate instrumental music that would also be appreciated. Thank you!:)

Hope all is well with everyone! Can't wait to see you on Christmas! I love getting your letters even if it's like every couple weeks and i get like three at a time. hahaha all good though. The work is good. Dean is lined up for her baptism on the 21st, but I will probably not be teaching her once the new missionaries get here because we will have to split the area and Elder Grant will probably be taking her.  Jimmy is keen for baptism too and he would probably be in my area! very excited, nervous, overwhelmed, and happy. There you go. those are my feelings right now. hahaha love you all!

love,

Elder Tingey

The very mature elders of our district.

Sister Imamori captured true beauty with this one, i think. (those are not easy to get off of)

The Campbelltown 1st District-artsy style. actually it just accidentally focused on the grass instead of us. Story of our lives...

Week 16

Dear family,

I have been kidnapped by the russian mafia and they are making a movie about me and my companion. just kidding. sorry mum, not funny? Happy birthday to my dearest mother. Thank you for being so amazing. You are the best. Can't believe you're 43 already!

This week was an exciting one! Haha well, for missionary standards at least. Monday, for P-day we played sport at the CHapel. I jumped in with the tongans for a game of Volleyball, and man, it is a totally different sport with them. They brought this drink that i can't pronounce the name of but it was incredible, and Tongan pancakes which are soooooo delicious. on tuesday we had Zone conference so we slept at the Samoan Elders' flat monday night because it woud save us some K's and because we needed to get haircuts and elder Fuataga is the designated Zone barber. Zone conference was great. Heaps of things I can improve on and it was great to see all the elders from the MTC. Elder Ward is in Mittagong, Barlow is in Wollongong, and Hixson is in Liverpool. They've all spoken a little chinese, but only a couple conversations. But that's a couple conversations more than i've spoken! Hahaha We had interviews with President on Wednesday, which was awesome. I love President lew. He's cool as. (that's an aussie term. It's like they're letting you do the comparison. First time i heard someone say "sweet as" i thought they were saying something a little different.haha) He told me that He knew He was sending me to an area that has no chinese people, but there were other reasons he wanted me to come to Camden. I'm trying to figure those reasons out. He told me I will probably be staying here for another transfer because (spoiler allert) Dean is cleared for baptism and has a date for the 21st of December! So excited about that. President interviewed her and said that her intent is there and there's nothing she can do to get out of her living situation and baptism is the best thing for her right now. Can't wait for it. But President told me that my next companion will be a chinese speaker so that means i will most likely be leaving Camden after next transfer. That made me happy because it will be much easier to learn the language when i can at least speak it with my companion. Sister Lew gave me an oreo when i talked to her. She is so awesome. Best mission mom ever. You don't have to worry about my health or anything because she is on top of it. The first thing she asked me was, "do you excercise every morning" .... I DO, mom. Hahaha she is great. In case, you were wondering, I am healthy, and nothing "seems to be the problem." (I hope someone gets that quote)

On thursday we had tradeoffs with the district leader. I went with elder Fiu. He's our district leader and the coolest guy ever. For the fist time since the MTC, i went to bed after 10:00. We were just laying there talking til like 11. I know, REBEL. We taught 4 lessons that day, which is the highest number i've gotten so far. We got to talk to Jimmy and invited him to be baptised and he said he wanted to! he's grown up going to the Samoan church. I can't remember what it's called, but he said it's mostly just about culture and he likes how the mormons do it. He told us he doesn't want to set a date until he tells his parents so we are waiting for that to happen. The trouble with jimmy is just getting in contact with him. He doesnt' have a phone so we just have to stop in and see if he's home. It's all good though. The lord wants him to be baptised and will prepare a way for it to happen. Hopefully its before i get transferred. We tracted into a family from south africa and we are going to see them tonight. It was cool because we only planned to knock four doors at that time, but after we got yelled at once and the other three weren't home, elder Fiu wanted to hit one more and that's when we found them. hahaha It's always the last one!  Hopefully they will be receptive. And that is about it for the week.

Transfers are next week so i will be emailing a day later than usual so don't be freaking out, thinking i've been kidnapped or something. Hahaha But I'll let you all know what happens with that. Like i said, i think i'm staying here for another transfer, but the new car gets here this week so we are going down to mortdale to pick it up. Thank you for all the support and amazing-ness! Love you heaps!

Zai jian!

(that's right, i still speak chinese)

-Elder Tingey

Ps: sorry, no pictures this week. please don't be mad.

PPS: hint for the quote if you didn't get it yet: "it SEEMS my INSIDES want to be on my OUTSIDE"

Week 15

Hello everyone. How is life in Salt Lake? Things are pretty much normal here. We had a pretty good week planned out but one by one, our appointments would fall through. Few things are more frustrating than making an appointment with an investigator that lives way out in woop woop and then using our precious kilometers to drive out there and then no one is home. I guess thats what happens when your flat-mate is a professional boxer. Hahaha all good though.

We have a sister in our ward named Diamond Langi. She is a professional model and she was going to represent Tonga in the Miss World Competition, but she won some other beauty contest and I guess they don't let you win everything in the same year so she's not going to the miss world competition. So thats our claim to fame. We've been trying to go visit her because her parents are less active, so maybe we will get a picture with her. hahaha

Here are The questions of the week:

"How long has your companion been on his mission? Do you share the apartment with any other elders or is it just the two of you? What door do you use to go into your apartment? Does it face the main street or that side street?"

Elder Grant has been on his mission for about six months now. I am his second son. It is just us in the flat. No other companionships live there because there is not enough room. (i'm pretty sure i have answered that question like three times now) The door i use to get into my apartment is on the side street. It's just a door in the wall with a handle right smack dab in the middle of it.

On saturday they did this big festival to Light the Christmas tree in Camden and they closed down the whole main street to do it. It was cool. They had fireworks that we could see from our balcony. Hopefully that wasn't too big of a sin for us to watch...

This week we have our Zone conference and Since President Lew is coming down he is going to Interview our investigator Dean and he might clear her for baptism! It's not a for sure thing, but i'm praying for it! If he does clear her, we would try to do the baptism this Saturday. She is so ready for it. She has a stronger testimony than some of our members! Pray for her!

Sorry i don't have a ton to say today. Mom is going to be mad at me. But i'm loving it out here. It's been raining a ton this week but its nice cuz it keeps the temperature down. We've got an appointment with a potential investigator this week so hopefully that doesn't fall through. Her name is Kelly. She's keen to learn and i have high hopes for her. Every other time we've tried to meet with her it has fallen through so i'm prayin for this week to be the week! Transfers are coming up and i'm scared i'm going to have to train or take over the area or something. But i guess if i do train, i'll get to see Elder Randle! or even train elder randle! Can't wait to see him.

I got two packages this week from sarah and from Mum! Thank you sooo much! Happy birthday to me and happy halloween! hahaha just a little late... also i have gotten the letters that were written on the 14th and 21st of october. I will probably get one this week at zone conference so we'll see how that goes.

Love you guys! Chuch is true! I feel like the front lines of the church sometimes, and it's weird but awesome at the same time. Remember to send me questions that you have so i can answer them! (and have something to write about because i don't really know what to write like ever)

Love,

Elder Tingey

Not yet, but its gettin there....

This is the Burragorang Lookout over the Wollondilly river. Beautiful Eh? That was what we did last P-day. Dont worry, it's in my area. My area goes from Glen Alpine to This national park, and then from Leppington down to Picton. THATS why we have a car.

Our November Calendar from our wonderful Zone leaders Elder Whiting and Elder Williams

Here's my district. More sisters than elders, i know. From left to right: Sister Tejada from the Phillippeans, Sister Pagnin from Italy, Sister Zeigner from Germany, Sister Imamori from Japan, and Sister Burnett from Utah, Some Stud, Elder Arbado from the Phillippeans, Elder Fiu (district leader) from Melbourne, and ELder Grant from melbourne (Sister Burnett pointed out that this looks like a wedding photo and then things just got kindof awkward...hahaha)

Week 14

To those who have not yet forgotten me:

I have been chastened by our dear mother because my emails are not up to par. For this I appologize, and i blame becca. How can i compete with Hermana Tingey's emails? I just can't live up to the standard. SO we are implementing something. If my email does not live up to all your expectations, send me a quick email with questions you have and i will do my best to answer them the next week. Mother's questions from last week are as follows:

"What do you do in the morning? what time to you go out and when you do go out what do you do? Do you just knock doors or what and what about Halloween? did you tract? do they celebrate Halloween over there?"

In the morning i wake up at 6:30 like a good missionary should. I excercise for 1/2 hour and weigh myself. Excercise usually consists of some sort of ab workout and some push-ups. At my current state i am weighing 92.2 Kilos so you can go do the conversion if you really are desiring to know how much i weigh. My goal is to never go about 100. Personal study starts at 8:00 so i shower and eat a bowl of Wheat Bix (cereal) and get ready between 7 and 8. Personal study goes for an hour, then companionship study for an hour, then 12-week training for new missionaries goes for an hour, then language study goes for an hour and then we usually have lunch and leave the flat about 1:00. Halloween isn't really celebrated here. our ward did a trunk n treat but it wasnt' a big thing. We just went on business as usual on Haloween. Something about "We are always missionaries" or something like that.

So this week was a good week. We picked up 2 new investigators. one's name is jimmy. He's a 300 lb Samoan that lives with one of our Less active members named Emosi Solitua. Emosi is a professional Boxer and he's 18th in the nation in his weight division. He had a fight this weekend and i'm hoipng to find out how it went. But we stopped by to visit emosi and met Jimmy. We gave him a samoan Book of Mormon about a week and a half ago and he said he read a quarter of it! He's toatally keen to learn more so i'm really excited. But we need to reactivate emosi because i don't think either me or elder grant could baptize jimmy, but emosi has a chance.

The next one's name is Ken. We met ken of a referral for his wife, actually. She wanted a blessing so her mormon friend referred her to us. we gave the blessing and she turned out to be a religion hopper that wasn't really interested in finding a religion right now but her husband is so we are teaching him and he said he's been looking for a religion for 10 yrs now.

This sunday in our gospel principles class our investigator Dean said something that i thought was really cool. When asked what the Atonement did for us, she said, "it gives us a choice". So true. Christ has laid down his life for us in order to give us the choice to either follow him or not.

Yesterday on our visits we gave two blessings that were unplanned. It was cool. One was the grandmother of one of our members. She was tongan and couldn't speak much english so she couldn't understand the blessing at all but it was still a cool experience and the spirit was strong. Did you know that in tongan culture, missionaries are like royalty? Haha its funny cuz this old tongan woman was getting mad at the little kids for running around and talking in front of us. hahaha if only everyone thought like that.... The second was the less-active daughter of one of our members. She wanted a blessing because she has a test today for uni so i gave her a blessing and she was crying when we finnished. Not sure what i said but the spirit was strong.

Love you all,

CHurch is true.

Love,

Elder TIngey

A bad picture of most of our zone. sorry i tried to do self-timer. This is at district training meeting.

Week 13

To whom it may concern,

Hello family and friends that are lucky enough to get this email sent to them! Hahaha how is everyone??? Love you all. This week has been nuts and it feels like i just emailed you like yesterday since it was Wednesday when i last sent one. I say things have been nuts, but what i mean is, all our plans have been falling through. Hahaha its been all over the shop. We had an elder go into the hospital last week and on wed night we were trying to plan the day, but just had the hardest time coming up with things to do. We finally figured out a plan that seemed a bit dodgy, but it filled the schedule so we called it good. The next morning our Zone leader called us and asked us if we could go spend most of the day in the Hospital with this elder because his companion had to go to district leader training in Mortdale. Hahaha the lord works in mysterious ways! We went and sat with this elder and i read my pinyin book of mormon for a good two hours. Oh yeah, i'm a chinese speaking missionary! sometimes i forget. haha but its fun. Yesterday we had a lesson with the Sika family. They are members, and totally active, but its a single mother situation and she needs a boost from the missionaries every once in a while. But she asked me to give the closing prayer and i said it in Chinese and all the kids thought it was the coolest thing they'd ever heard. Haha if only they knew how bad my chinese really is... but i'll just let them think i'm pro. Don't want to crush their hearts. haha

We met a woman named Kelly that is a single mother (why is it that our whole teaching pool is women?) She is a truck driver and she just got back from a month-long, $10,000 holiday in Hawaii. Ya, she told us ALL about it. but it was kind of a miracle that we bumped into her. Elder Grant met her before she went on holiday, but she seemed interested so she told him to visit when she got back. that was about a month ago. So last week we were short on our Kilometer allotment for the month since it was near the end of the month, so we decided to park the car and walk one day. We had planned to go check and see if kelly was home but as we were walking to her house elder grant said "wait a second, she works all week during the day. what are we doing?" I, from the depths of my kind and faithful and sympathetic heart said, "well, maybe she lost her job." haha we knocked on the door and she answered! i though i had just made the biggest call of my life. but she had only just got back from holiday and she didn't start work for a couple days which was good. haha but the cool thing was that she had only just gotten home like fifteen minutes before we knocked so if we had been driving that day, we would have missed her. So that was cool.

Things are going well. The bush fires are under control now so i guess i can tell you about them... We were never in like a TON of danger, but a lot of people had to evacuate their homes. we never had to. I didn't want to tell you guys about them until i was sure that you didn't have to worry... Haha MOM, I'M FINE. A man in our ward gave me a book called "southern Cross saints." it talks about great grandpa Tingey a lot in there. It was cool. We are getting a NEW CAR!!!!! Its not a corola either! It's a Holden Cruise. They don't have them in America. That's probably the most exciting thing in my life right now. Nothing much else has happened this week. Our baptismal date is off so that's disappointing, but she is still doing well. She will get dunked yet! Let me know how everyone is doing. I love emails, letters, and anything else from home! 

Also, make sure my mailing address is correct on like facebook and stuff.

Australia Sydney South Mission

PO Box 456

Mortdale, NSW 2223

Love you guys! miss you guys!

Love,

Elder Tingey

Week 12

okay so i have like no time at all to email today so i have to make this shorter than i'd like. forgive me please and don't judge me if it's scatter-brained.

first off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!!! It's not early either because it's the 30th in Australia. Love you.

Every friday night across the street they play live music in the pub. It's really loud and makes it hard to plan but they stop around 10:30 so we sleep fine. but we were planing and our ward's second counselor came by to drop off the general conference talk he wanted me to speak on on sunday in sacrament meeting. (i spoke in sacrament this week. did fine.) But he knocks on the door and i opened it and he asks, "how do you deal with this?" talking about the music. I recognized the song to be a bruno mars song and told him i just have to block it out. (really i love it.) hahaha bad missionary, i know.

We met a guy last week named Daniel. He's from Ghana. It was weird cuz we were going to grab some lunch and we were about to cross the street and there were no cars coming but for some reason i hesitated. I looked over and elder grant had hesitated as well. then we both look over and see Daniel sitting on a bench waiting for a taxi. We walked over and started talking to him and he said he'd had contact with the church over in ghana because they would do activities in the ward house. he is studying to be a vet and we got his number. He's leaving for ghana soon to go to his fathers funeral so i'm hoping we can get in contact with him before he leaves. Just a little miracle to share with you guys.

We went to the temple yesterday and it was awesome. Our new zone is great. I love being around all the missionaries doing stuff because it's just so much fun. The Tongans (tongan speaking elders) would disappear and we owuld think we'd lost them, but then we'd get on a train and they would be sitting in the car. hahahaha it was hilarious. They are so tongan it kills me. Love them to death.

Our investigator is doing well, we had to postpone the baptismal date but we are working with her to get there!

I had an epic battle with a cockroach a couple nights ago. I was victorious, but it came with lots of yelling and slamming of shoes and phonebooks. ELder grant got a kick out of it. luckily we don't have any neighbors...

Love you guys, the church is true. THe work is great and is way exciting to be a part of. It truly is hastening.

love,

Elder Tingey

ps. i got your letters yesterday. Thank you!!!! i will be writing you back soon okay!

A stereotypical Australian tree. 

Me and Elder Grant at the Temple

Week 11

Holy cow it's been a crazy week!

Sorry i didn't get to email yesterday. We had transfers going on so P-day is on tuesday this week. and next week is the same because we have our Zone temple trip next week!!! So don't look for an email until tuesday. I havent gotten your letters yet but there is the chance that they are sitting in the mission office waiting to be picked up and brought out to me. I havent sent a letter yet because i don't have envelopes so i am buying some of those today and i will send off my letter as soon as possible. Also i said the guy that knew who grandpa was name was brandon murray, but its actually braedon Murrin. This is not english that people are speaking to me. hahahaha he's a funny guy though.

To answer the question you have all been wondering, yes, i have seen Kangaroos. Two of them, to be exact. They were both roadkill.

This past week has been our stake's stake conference so i still haven't been in a sacrament meeting with our ward. On the Saturday afternoon session of conference the stake president, who is in our ward, called Elder Tingey up to the stand because "he's as green as they come". He asked me why i'm here and i wasn't sure what answer he was after so i started reciting the missionary purpose. I hesitated after every line and he didn't cut me off so i kept going. He stoped me around baptism. and said "well at least he's keen!" hahahahaha it was funny. He asked me if i had had any good meals while i was here. I said heaps. He asked if i had had any at the Jones' home. (his home) i said "just the one." brought the house down. Hahaha but he's a funny guy. Then our investigator Dean showed up to the sunday session of conference! She is awesome. On tuesday of last week we met with her in the park and invited her to be baptized and she Accepted! Her date is november 9 which is her birthday so she's really excited about that. Thursday we taught her the Word of wisdom and she has a pretty bad smoking and drinking problem so i was worried but she took it like a champ, as if she had been expecting it and she is doing her best to give it all up! She's amazing, and one of the strongest people i've ever met. She's got a few more things to sort out before her baptism so we'll see how it goes, but i have a lot of hope!

As i said, we had transfers this week. Grant and i got moved into another district where there are four elders and five sisters... I'm pretty bummed about that. Elder Sa'u Gaui got transferred out and that makes me sad cuz he was awesome. plus i'm not in the fun district anymore!

We saw an ad for Thor in a members home and that looks amazing. Put it on my must watch list for when i get home.

Yesterday we were tracting in the 36 degree heat (celcius) and as we walked past a high school a young polynesian girl from across the street yelled "Hey! I'm a Mormon! I'm LDS!" It was awesome. I wish everyone in the church had the confidence to yell that in front of all their friends. I feel like i'm constantly yelling that just by wearing the badge. BUt its amazing and such an awesome opportunity to serve the lord and be a representative of Christ.

I love you guys. The church is true. God has been so good to me. I love that story president Monson told in conference. Our message changes lives for the better.

Hoorah for israel!

Elder Tingey

Elder Pongi, Elder Vaele, and Sister Burnett. It was elder Vaele's first time bowling. it was killing me.

Elder Sa'u Gaui, Elder Fuataga, Elder Fiu

Elder Sa'u Guai...yes it's on the mirror.

Week 10

Welcome to Australia!!! 

Oh man its awesome here. I just exchanged my american money for some aussie notes and i feel like i'm in harry potter with how big the coins are. Everyone has the accent and everyone thinks MY accent is weird. Sadly, girls, everyone doesn't look like Keith urban. Its looks like america but it sounds different. My companion is Elder grant. he is about 5'5" (he won't say how tall he is exactly, he just says "short") He's an aussie through and through. Funny story, He doesn't have his license because apparently its a lot harder to get it in Australia  and our area has a car so thursday night, when i got here, I got handed the keys and after a couple turns around the block with the APs, i was taking me and elder grant back to the flat. I was jet-lagged, and on the opposite side of the road and car and it is lucky the lord watches over missionaries because we made it home safely. I've got the hang of it by now and elder grant has been in the area for 6 months now so he knows his way around so we make a pretty good team. Like i said in my last email, president Lew told me i won't be speaking a ton of Chinese  I still get an hour a day for language study, but my lessons will almost always be in english. The area i'm in is called Camden. It is mostly white people with a couple polynesians. Not a single Chinese person. My district has four white elders and four polynesians. They're hilarious. our district leader is Elder Fuataga and he played football for the Utes! The district bought me a cake for my birthday and sang to me outside a Hungry Jack's (which is like burger king) They're way cool and we're going bowling later today.

our flat is something to behold. I'll try to send some pictures, but all the lights are pull-strings. Our bedroom doen't have a light, well it does, but the electricity is such that if you put a lightbulb in, it would explode, so we just steer clear of it and use flashlights at night. So far i havent seen any cockroaches in our flat because Elder grant has kept it nice and clean. I had to do some jimmy work on my drawer so that it would open but it's right as rain now. It's exciting stuff. our flat is on a street called Argile street in Camden. im not sure what the exact address is but if you want to google earth it, go to argile street, it's like off the main street in camden, it's on top of a butcher shop and it has a balcony. let me know if you find it!

We don't exactly have any progressing investigators right now but we are working to get some. We taught a family by the name of the Utapos. They are so awesome. They're polynesian and their son has a girlfriend that wants to know about the church, so we have been teaching her but she lives in a different area so technically she's not OUR investigator, but she comes over to the Utapos when we teach. There's a family called the Crofts that is amazing. They're members and they love the missionaries so they invite us to dinner a ton. they've got two young boys and they are just way cool. We're going to start teaching a girl named Shylee, who was baptized when she was young, but her family went inactive so and she wants to learn more about the church so hopefully we can get her to come back to church with the whole family! Last night i had my first bible basher. It was dumb. She wasn't even willing to open the book of mormon and ask god if it was true and she just wanted to bash with us so i kind of gave up. Elder Grant likes bashing so he kept going and i was just frustrated because we weren't getting anywhere. So i'm promising myself i will never bash. not only because i don't know the bible well enough, but because our religion comes down to the fact that joseph smith was a prophet and people have to WANT to know that he is a prophet. But it's all good. We actually had a miracle happen yesterday. Dean, a woman they've been teaching, but they havent' been able to get ahold of her for like two weeks, walked into general conference yesterday! (they broadcast it a week late here so i got to watch it twice!) It was a straight up miracle and she started crying while the prophet spoke.

I'm loving it here. I miss you guys like crazy. 

I've met heaps of people that know Grandpa already! I think his name is Brandon Murray, but i'm not sure. He's in our stake presidency and he said that grandpa was the mission president when his dad was in the stake presidency. A bunch of people ask if Earl C. Tingey is my relative, and he was a mission president in Australia too so things get confusing. I drive a white toyota corola and we cruise the town like it's nobody's business. The kids are adorable. The only thing cuter than a little kid talking with an aussie accent is a little polynesian kid talking with an aussie accent. 

I have been homesick but like Elder Dube said in conference, Never look back, only forward. There's a lot of work to do so i'm losing myself in it. God is great, i feel Christ's love all the time.

Love you guys!

Love, Elder Tingey

Also, a sister in the ward told me i look like the guy off George of the Jungle. I can't remember his name now but look it up and see for me.

Me with President and Sister Lew. I kinda look like a heroine addict here but oh well

My Bed

Selfie Sunday!

Cleanest Bathroom in the ASSM

Week 9

Holy cow i leave tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its official. my visa is here. i report to the travel office tomorrow at 12:30 and take the frontrunner out to the airport. Nervous is an understatement, but so is excited. I feel like i've been waiting for this day and it was never supposed to come. But its here! Already said goodbye to some people and will say goodbye to some more tomorrow, but my whole room is going at the same time and three of us are on the same flight all the way there. (hixson is on a different flight to LA but with us on the flight to sydney and he's with a bunch of cantonese speakers who think that their language is superior to mandarin... psht) 

Over my mtc life i have come to liken it unto highschool. You come in as a freshman, all excited and ready to do your best. Then you take felt and get your first A- and your momentum begins to decline. By the end of junior year you're ready to get out, but when you get to the last months of senior year you realize that after highschool life gets real. We had a departure devotional last night and it wasn't until that was over that i realized how close the field is. I think the constant idea that we might not get our visas made me not be able to think about it but now its just here. also, you've got the different cliques here. at least with the people that are here for more than two weeks. You've got people that are social butterflies like the frenchies ( not fair. they have french accents and i cant compete with that) and then there's people like me and Hixson that sit back and make fun of people from the sidelines. and all sorts of others that i don't have time to go into detail on right now. Also i feel older than all the elders here, but i know that i'm one of the younger ones in age. 

How did everyone like general conference?!?!?!?! Man it was great. Tons of good stuff and its amazing how when you go in with questions and with a prayer in your heart, then even if the talk is about overcoming depression you can receive revelation from it. I also couldn't believe how much they talked about missionaries! I don't know why, but it seemed to me like when they were talking about how members need to step up to the yoke with the missionaries i just felt this overwhelming amount of trust. The apostles trust the missionaries so much, even though we're not able to speak the language, and don't understand the gospel as well as some members, the apostles are asking members to place their trust in missionaries that the spirit will work through us. I just hope i can live up to the expectation.

I've been hearing weird things about the government being shut down or something... What's going on with that? 

Today we went to the temple for the last time. It was great. My temple recommend works if i didn't already tell you guys that... everyone is excited for me to show them how i packed my suitcase so lets hope i can remember... last night at our sunday devotional they had "Vocal point" come. they are an acapella group from BYU and they were great. It's nice to hear recently returned missionaries talk because they are real with you. They remember better the emotions that go through you and they seem to connect better with missionaries than an 80 year old man that no one really knows that well. Aparently since it was conference this week all the general authorities have been preparing their talks for conference and we haven't had an Apostle come speak at one of our devotionals in Weeks! I'm kinda disappointed about that, but the talks have still been great. Elder maynes that spoke on sunday came to the mtc a few weeks ago. I really like him. 

We said goodbye to our investigators last week. We were so close to having Mao Jiemei ready for baptism. We just had to teach the law of tithing and paying fast offerings and that would have been all the lessons. Oh well, i guess i'll have to wait till the field to teach those... 

Thank you to everyone for being so supportive of me. You have no idea how many times i've been down on myself and pitying myself and then i get a slip telling me i have a package or i get a letter and my spirits instantly get better. I love you guys so much and i cant wait to talk to you tomorrow! 

Love all y'all!

Love,

Elder Tingey

ps. My mission is officially 1/12 over. now i just can't wait to get to work!

Week 8

My abstract art photo that I took on our Temple Walk

Look who got a haircut!

Guess who got travel plans?????!!!!!! 

Ugh i'm so excited! Can't wait to get to Sydney. Last night at the sunday devotional i sat next to a sister from Denmark going to the Temple square mission. She wouldn't believe me that i was going to Sydney because my tag was in Chinese characters. I'm pretty sure she still doesn't. I guess its just too cool for people to handle. I sent you guys a letter on friday but it doesn't seem like you got it on saturday so it's going to seem redundant but i'll go over my travel plans anyways. I leave tuesday night, the 8th, at 3:00. My flight leaves at 6:30 from salt lake to LA and i get there at 8:30 salt lake time. that is probably when i will call you guys. If i'm sitting in the salt lake airport doing nothing, i might give you a call as well. Are you still going to be in St. George? or can i call the home phone? My flight leaves LA at 10:10 LA time, which is 11:10 salt lake time. So we're looking at about a three hour layover. then i get on the plane and head to Sydney, which is only a 15 hour flight instead of the 18 hour one i was planning on. Its still enough time to teach all the lessons... hahaha just kidding but a little bit serious at the same time. In our travel group it is me, elder ward, elder smith, and a sister named Qi Ke. I've never seen her before but elder ward met her and she is apparently on the fast track so maybe she can teach me Chinese on the airplane. We talked to the travel office today and they said that we will probably find out if we have our visas tonight! At least i think that is what she said... if we get it, i will send a quick email and tell you. oh yeah, i talked to the health center and set up an appointment to get that shot so i'm all squared away there. As far as weight goes, i'm not sure what i'm looking like. I will probably send you guys a package of stuff i cant take but i don't know how much it's going to be. Hixson got his plans too and he leaves on monday so i am without a companion for a day. but it's nice cuz tuesday is just like an extra p-day for me. we don't have classes and all i do is pack all day and do some laundry.

This week was pretty typical. except one thing... I saw Katie! I was walking back from gym on tuesday and she was on her way back from the temple with her friend and they pulled up next to us at the light. It was crazy. she was freaking out. It made me miss home though. Plus i'm realizing that once i'm in the field, it wont even be like you guys are just up the street. you'll be half-way across the world. its weird. but i can't dwell on stuff like that or else i get depressed. Gotta just press forward. its only 22 months and it's already flying. Even though i feel like i've been here my whole life, i can't believe i'm leaving in a week. I'm completely terrified and i've said that many times, but last week i feel like i jumped as far as progression with the language goes. I was listening to some recorded Chinese lessons that i couldn't understand at all a couple weeks ago and i was following, for the most part, the stuff they were talking about. I bore my testimony in church and even made a joke! I can talk a bunch about the gospel, but anything else, i'm deer in the headlights. I know the first few weeks are going to be rough, and i'm not looking forward to feeling like an idiot, but i know someday i will be able to talk to people. 

It is ridiculously cold here. It like happened over night i swear. I was wearing short-sleeved shirts and feeling amazing and all of a sudden i'm an icicle. It's ridiculous. I'm just glad i'm going to summer in Australia. 

Last night i was having my personal devotional, because in mission conference yesterday the speaker promised us that our language would accelerate, and our effectiveness as a missionary would improve if we had a personal devotional every night so im taking his word for it, but i decided to flip open my bible and i flipped straight to the story of the man that takes his son to Christ to be healed, then when asked if he believes his son can be healed he says, "Lord i believe. Help thou mine unbelief." I know elder holland had a talk on that so i'm going to print it off and read it. Faith is something i have been working on since week 1 here. I've been trying to get more of it, but also to understand it better. It seems to be the catalyst behind every miracle christ performed. If people had the faith, then they were healed. I've studied the story of peter walking on water. It has helped me understand the power of faith, and how easy it is to let our faith falter. That's my weekly sermon.

The funny experiences have seemed to be spread out a little bit more. probably because everyone is realizing how close we are to the field so they are buckling down for crunch time. I don't have much else to say... i got a ward newsletter from bishop doxey. seems like elder liddell is doing well and the ward is pluggin along as usual without me. we dropped our suits off to be dry-cleaned today and hixson took both of his so he isn't going to have one for the devotional tomorrow... he's retarded. hahahaha oh well, good luck to us. we'll just sit at the back. I weighed in at 204 yesterday which is pretty much EXACTLY what i weighed 8 weeks ago. Hope everyone is proud of me. i only eat 1 bowl of ice cream every time they have it. And sometimes i only get 1 cup of soda and the other water instead of 2 cups of soda. Thats right. AND i ate a salad one day for lunch. 

We held a fantasy draft of states for reassignments. We went through rounds and picked states that we thought people will get reassigned to if we don't get our visas. it was a waste of time, but it was fun. We also had a Sisters draft. we only made it through one round before the fights broke out but i picked a sister from South Carolina that by the looks of her, is EC material. hahahahahahahahahah okay i better send this before i say anything else weird that's gonna make mom think im a bad missionary.

Love you guys! Church is true! Desperately hoping i get my visa!!!!!

-Elder Tingey

"Austria eh? Well then... LETS PUT ANOTHER SHRIMP ON THE BARBIE!"

"lets not."

Week 7

Nimen Hao!!!!!

Sooo im not sure if y'all got my letters yet, i sent them on friday and so they either got to you on saturday or they will get there later today. If you already got them then this won't be big news to you but if not then maybe it will be! Me and hixson are now zone leaders. We are in for two weeks and then off we go. We don't do much, but we have to go to some meetings on sunday morning and walk around to everyone's room every night and check on them but luckily there are only 3 districts in our zone so it doesn't take that long. In case you are worried, we are STILL sacrament coordinators. President dunn is out of town this week so he hasn't found time to call new ones. Apparently we just have to assign the preparation and take down to someone else next week if there isn' a new one called yet. Sorry this keyboard really sucks and i don't want to go back and correct all my mistakes so if you want to just do some editing before you send it out feel free so that i don't look like retarded or something. However, Chinese does jack with my mind so i reserve the right to make errors.

I made it past this week without speaking in church so that means that as long as my visa comes through (and i think it will because a couple english elders i talked to today got theirs and they weren't delayed at all) then i won't have to speak for sure! because next week is fast sunday and then general conference! I'll probably bear my testimony next week, but that is much easier than giving a talk. This week me and hixson taught district meeting which is after priesthood and right before lunch and the topic was enduring to the end. It turned out to be a really good lesson/discusion. we went around the room and had everyone share a story, personal or scriptural, of someone that is the epitome of enduring to the end. I shared the story of uncle paul. We talked about Joseph smith when in jail he says, "oh God, where art thou?" and then we talked about Christ, and how he is the ultimate endurer. (is that a word? i don't know) We discussed what would have come of mankind if he hadn't endured to the end. If he had instead of saying, "nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done" had said something like, "Father, let this cup pass from me. I can't do it. It's too hard. You can't expect me to suffer like this." BUT he didn't say that and because he stuck it out we can overcome the Fall and return to our Father in Heaven. He is so awesome. 

At the end of every class we have what's called coaching time, where the teacher does 1 on 1 with the missionaries that want it. I asked Sister Xiao for some feedback on my Chinese and she told me my tones are really good!!!!! I can't tell you how awesome that felt to hear, but i'm not completely sure if she was being real with me. But then she asked if she could talk to me in the hall and i was worried cuz in the past, every time i've been taken into the hall by a teacher it hasn't been a good thing.... But she took me out and reminded me of what she had said earlier in class that day that we are doing a teaching exercise with the younger district where we will teach them 1 on 1 on thursday (which i was not exactly excited for...I'm sick of teaching fake investigators) but then she said that there was one elder in the district that is really struggling with the language. He will only speak it when he absolutely has to and even then he doesn't say much. She told me that the whole exercise was mainly to help this Elder out. She told me that they were talking about how they could help him as teachers and my name came up. So they set this teaching thing up so that he can have a chance to talk to me and hopefully I can help him. I have no idea what i'm going to say to him and i feel more pressure from this than from being zone leader! So please pray for me this week that i will get some sort of inspiration for this kid. I really want to help him out. The lesson is on thursday.

I finished the BofM on Saturday!!!!!! I said that in my letter too, but oh well. I'm excited. That book is true. I just know it is. I'm starting to study PMG now for personal study, but i don't have any good ideas for how i should mark it up. Becca and John, do you have any ideas?

Saturday night was one of the longest nights here. We could hear the crowd, but we couldn't pick out a score. Some kid two floors up had a radio that people were listening to but i decided that if i went up that my Chinese would probably suck this week or something so i stayed in my room and cried. Then sunday morning at breakfast i asked a cafeteria worker named Lexie what the score was. She said "20-13. we lost." i smiled real big and said, "who's we?" hahahahahahaha GO UTES!!!!!! I hope you had some good bets going on with some zoobies!!! We had gym time saturday night so we saw everyone going to the game. some elder last week going to argentina saw my utah shirt and asked, "they let you come on a mission?" I said, "the begged me".... Spanish speakers. psht

There was an elder from Tahiti named elder Mataoa but he lived in Australia for a while so a couple nights ago he was in our room telling us about Australia  He said he loves sydney and that he is really jealous of our mission. just listening to him made me want to be there sooo bad!!!! I'm completely terrified of the language, and he said that there is a huge population of Chinese people in sydney, but i am so excited to be out there. Although you guys should go check out my mission boundaries, cuz we've been looking at it and it seems like we don't have much of anything in our mission. It shows that the Oprah house and the bridge are in the north mission, but i don't really know. plus the fact that im Chinese might mean that i will be jumping borders into the north mission. I really cant see them putting me anywhere but sydney or maybe canberra but we will see. 

I definitely just put my temple recommend through the wash because i am just a little bit dumber than a rock. I must have forgot to pull it out of my shirt pocket after the temple this morning. when i pulled my whites out of the washer it was sitting there, plastered to the side. its still in that plastic case thing, and the pen on it didn't bleed too much, but its all soggy. Do you think i need to get a new one? or will it be alright? 

Hope all is well! Heard my titans lost this week. I get my travel plans on friday so i will email you monday and let you know what day i leave and the other details. Love you guys! Church is true!

Love,

Elder Tingey