Week 23

Nimen Hao!

Okay now i know you are all dying to hear about transfers, but i will get to that later. I want to start with a sweet as miracle we had this week. We were going around visiting people on Tuesday and At one point our plans fell through, and then our backup plan fell through. and even our backup to the backup fell through and i'm pretty sure if we had had one more backup plan it would've fallen through also. But we didnt' really know what to do so we decided to call one of the people on our former investigators list. Her name is Julie. It's always dodgy to do former investigator work because sometimes they are nice to you and want to talk to you and sometimes there is a reason they stopped investigating the church and they want nothing to do with you. But we decided to call. She answered the phone and as soon as we said this is the missionaries she said, "I haven't seen you in a while! Come over right now!" I told her she hadn't seen us before ever because we are new to the area but we will be over soon. When we got there she invited us in. (her father lives with her so we were all goods) we talked about her history with the missionaries and she invited us back for dinner tonight so we are praying she picks us back up and starts progressing.

This week we went on trade-offs with the zone leaders. I was with Elder Phillips, from New Zealand, and elder Cheng went with Elder Whiting. I decided i wanted to have an experienced missionary show me how to tract and stuff because my trainer never really showed me and i've been trying to figure it out on my own and it's not really working, hahah. SO we went to this pretty wealthy area and started knocking. I kindof thought we wouldn't have any success, but it ended up being awesome! It's amazing how much more comfortable i feel on a doorstep when i'm not the senior companion. haha but i will say that tracting in australia is very unique. Not many other places in the world can you knock on 10 doors and talk to people from 10 different countries. We met a muslim man from south Africa, an aussie, a chilean, a samoan and tongan, a man from switzerland, a woman from hong kong (cantonese. i was heartbroken) its just amazing how much diversity there is.

Tomorrow the new misisonaries come in and I'm pretty sure elder Randle got his visa so he should be arriving with them! One of the elders in my district is training, i think, so there is a chance he could be in my district! that would be so flippin awesome. But that brings me to transfers. Elder Grant got transferred to Canberra, Elder Fiu (our district leader and probably my best friend for the past 12 weeks) is now a zone leader in Ingleburn which is not very far away at all! Elder whiting went up to fairfield i think. Not sure. Elder grant's replacement is Elder Peleuale from Samoa. Elder Fiu didn't get replaced because he was in a tri-panionship and elder whiting was replaced by elder Katene from New Zealand. Our district got switched up so we aren't with campbeltown 1st anymore. It's camden(4) Macarthur(6) and Campbeltown 3rd the samoan ward(2) I got to go to transfer meeting because i had the car and it was so awesome. It made me want to work harder, hearing all the departing misionaries bear their testimonies. But then after it was done, the APs handed out the travel plans for how we were getting back to our areas and each zone had a travel leader, and seeing as i was the only one that went to transfer meeting and didnt get transferred from our zone, guess who was the travel leader for the macarthur zone? That's right. I had to make sure all 9 of us got back to our areas and into our flats safely. On the paper the APs wrote "we're counting on you, elder Tingey. Don't fail us." hahaha it was stressful, but we all made it back okay. The new sisters are hectic. (that means cool in Australia, by the way) Sister Vos and sister pea and sister Perez. The elders are just as cool. Elder peleuale, elder katene, elder coats, and elder something that i can't remember how to spell. He's samoan. Hahaha okay i'll wrap this long as letter up, but i probably should mention that i got a call from president lew on saturday and he asked me to serve as District Leader. Ya, i'm just a bit overwhelmed right now but all will be well. Hahaha good luck to me. and to our district. This should be an exciting 6 weeks.

Love you all. God lives, Jesus is the CHrist, God has a prophet on the Earth today, and that is why we can change the world. I'm just happy to be a part of it. Til next week!

-Elder Tingey

Week 22

ALRIGHTY THEN! 

Hello everyone i hope you are all having an amazing fast sunday and I don't know if you are back from disneyland yet, but if not then you better have gone to church today... hahaha I went to church on senior trip so no excuses! We had a great fast and testimony meeting yesterday. A family that just moved into the ward got up and bore their testimonies and one of the daughters shared a quote that i really liked. "good, better, best. Never let it rest. Til your good becomes better and your better becomes best." I liked it because i think that's what my attitude toward missionary work needs to be. There are some things I am better at than others, but i need to constantly be striving to become better in all areas of the work. Then a YSA sister got up and bore testimony and talked about how she's been waiting for a visa to Brazil so she can serve her mission for 9 months and how it has tested her faith, but she knows that a mission is what the Lord wants her to do. Then a sister who has a daughter serving a mission stood up and talked about how proud she is of her, and when one missionary mom stands up, they all stand up, but the spirit was so strong in the meeting and I was once again amazed at the faith of our members. It takes a lot to be a member of the church and especially when you are not surrounded by members.

I forgot to write about this last week, but last sunday i was asked to be one of the witnesses for a member that was baptizing his daughter, and when i stood up there, the thought came to mind, "i dont think there's enough water in there." the man went to baptize his daughter and her dress bubbled up out of the water so we (me and Bishop Apulu) had him do it again. He did it again. same thing happened. try one more time. same result. It was a polynesian family so by now you have three women at the side of the font telling him and his daughter what to do. they tucked the dress between the girl's knees and tried again. It came up.  I think if there had been more water it wouldn't have been a problem, but there just wasnt enough and the dress kept foating up. After the fifth try and the dress still came up bishop looked at me and said "good enough." I figured he's got the Keys for baptism so it's his call. The poor little girl looked really concerned so after the baptism i went up and talked to her and told her how awesome it was to see her get baptised. Haha some experiences can only happen on a mission.

We still havent' been able to get in contact with Jimmy yet, but we are still praying and trying. We were able to visit a different investigator on saturday, though. I don't know if you all remember Ken but his wife was a referral from church headquarters. she wanted a blessing on the house and on her daughter who is going through a pretty nasty divorce so elder Grant and i went over there and gave the blesings and she told us she's a non-denominational Christian, but she goes to the orthodox church if she ever goes and she didnt' show much interest in us. Her husband (ken) however, called himself an atheist but was interested in what we had to say. we taught him about the book of mormon and invited him to read it. Then every time we came back he hadn't read  and didn't seem like he was going to read, but on saturday we went over and he showed us a book that he read. It was like a "bible for dummies" type of book and it summarized the new testament stories. He said we had started something with him and even though he still calls himself a non-believer, he wants to learn more. So i testified to him of my faith in christ and in the book of mormon which is another testament of Christ. It was awesome and i'm really excited for the future with him. I'm Praying hard!  

Apparently next week we are doing something called a "Mini mission" its where priests and laurels get to come with the missionaries for a week. It starts saturday and ends the next saturday.

Okay well that is all i have to say for today. Hope you all enjoyed the happiest place on earth without me. Love you all heaps and heaps!

Love,

Elder Tingey

ps I'll let you know what happens with transfers next week. I have a feeling the Macarthur Zone is going to have some big changes.

pps one of the members in our ward is in the great gatsby. It's the part where gatsby says "the next world champion!" and then claps someone on the shoulder. the guy he claps on the shoulder is in my ward. his name is john Maumau. He's a way cool guy. Really quiet, but awesome when you talk to him. go watch the movie and tell me if you see him. He's tongan or samoan. not sure which.

We've been getting desperate to find new investigators.

Week 21

To the people in Disney Land:

Good morning from Beautiful Camden! I hope you all had a wonderful New Years. I definitely did. We had to be back in the flat by 5:00 New years eve, but we got permission to sleep over at the Zone leader's flat and do another Hot pot with them. It was awesome. And then we celebrated with a sparkling grape juice fight at about 9:00. Some people got it on film and i want it because it's hilarious. it's five seconds of us screaming like little girls and shooting grape juice at each other. And then we went to bed like good missionaries. One of the missionaries kindof put a damper on the mood when he pointed out that it was officially the year that he was going home. Haha it's crazy how fast time goes here. I look back and can't believe how long i've been here. it seems like last week i was getting off the plane and meeting President Lew and just the week before that i was saying goodbye to all of you in Provo! It's nuts.

The past few weeks have been pretty uneventful. Once school got out people started leaving town on Holiday and by the time christmas rolled around, Camden was a ghost town. Literally no one was there. We spent hours knocking doors that wouldn't open and then we would go to the park to contact peole and there would be no one there. The reason i'm emailing today is because the library was closed from christmas until today. all the shops on the street we live on were closed and a car would drive past every like 10 min. Everyone goes up to Queensland apparently. We got to visit a couple less actives though, which was good. we are Trying to get people to come back to church. There are too many people that know the church is true, but they are just too lazy and are out of the habit of going to church and living the gospel. It makes me sad.

The Christmas presents have been awesome. Nothing beats American Junk food. The Ice Cream may be better here and they may have better all around deserts, but when it comes to being a slob and eating unhealthy food, america can't be beat. Haha Thank you so much. I got heaps of compliments at church when i wore my tie. It's so awesome. I save it for special occasions because i don't want to ruin it. (i'm not going to tell you how many ties i've ruined so far. )

Things are as good as they can be. sometimes i feel like we are doing a lot of sowing and not much reaping, but i'm trying to leave the area better than i found it. People need the gospel, they just dont' know that they need it. I pray to find someone prepared every day, and i have faith that someday soon we will find that one.

Thanks again for the christmas presents. and Talking to all of you was awesome.It Was great to talk to all of you and i can't wait for mother's day! Love you all! Miss you! CHurch is true!

Love,

Elder Tingey

Christmas Eve Hot Pot

Annual Christmas Morning on the Stairs Picture 

My Bed with my presents. Keeping traditions alive Mom

New Years Eve. Yes, that is a Lava Lava

Week 20

Where's Waldo?

Okay this week's will be short because i'm talking to you in two days. Can't flippin wait, by the way. It was a good week this week. Dean got baptized! It was awesome. Bishop baptized her and Elder Grant confirmed her in Sacrament meeting on sunday. That was definitely one of the coolest experiences i've had on my mission. Yesterday was mission conference so that's why i didn't get to email. We had everyone from the whole mission in mortdale and our zone did a samoan dance and the Hakka and it was awesome. I was so mad though because my camera ran out of battery just as we started to dance so i will get the video off someone else and send it to you guys. It was sweet as. Everyone was screamin and goin crazy.

I will plan to skype you guys at 12:30 My time so that should be 6:30 your time. Can't wait to see you all! Okay love you see you in two days!

Elder Tingey