Week 36

Hola mi familia estabamos un pokito pollo loco.

What a week, what a week. As you can see, I've been brushing up on my Spanish skills. The other elders had a less active come to church this week and he speaks Spanish and his English isn't very good, so I was trying to speak some of the Spanish I learned in school, and I realized that I didn't learn very much at all.... hahaha and it didn't help that every time I tried to say Yo, I would say Wo. hahaha it was a struggle and a half and I ended up just pointing to myself and saying "Gringo" and then speaking English... hahaha I guess the gift of tongues is only in Chinese for me...

This week was a lot of figuring out what's going on with our newly formed area. I don't know how we did it, but elder Wang and I got the best possible area we could have out of this whole situation. The area that elder Barlow and I were in has almost all of the less actives in the ward, and the area Elder Hixson and Elder Wang had covers the highest Chinese population in the whole city. hahaha it's like the best of both worlds, but it's weird because we've got downtown Wollongong and the University, and that's just a weird little island that we take care of, and then it jumps up to the far north suburbs and I looks really weird on our map we made, but I'm okay with it. I got to meet the people that Elder Wang was working with and it was really awesome. There's Trish, a uni student from Zimbabwe; Gong, a Uni student from China and Bruce Li, another uni student from China. They're all awesome people and I'm so excited to talk to them more about the gospel.

This week was Elder Wang's 20th birthday on Saturday. Friday night after basketball we surprised him at the other elders' flat with some hot pot and cake, then Saturday between sessions of conference the sisters surprised him with a cake, and in the afternoon, the Zone leaders came up and surprised him at our flat with cake and pizza. We probably should have coordinated better, but I will say, he definitely didn't see the triple-threat surprise party coming and he was definitely the most scared on the last one. hahahaha it was great, except we had just come from a Tongan feed for lunch and we couldn't eat any more food so the cake is still in our fridge. But there's nothing wrong with that.

General conference was FLIPPIN AMAZING. They didn't talk about missionaries very much which was kindof disappointing, but I really enjoyed what was said. They started it off strong, too with two of my favorite hymns and Elder Holland speaking. hahaha I was lovin it. I loved what he said about enduring tribulation. I enjoyed Elder Oaks talk in the priesthood session as well. I can't remember exactly what it was about, but I remember putting a star next to it in my notes so i'll have to go study over that one again. I heard that there were going to be members of the church protesting on temple square during priesthood. Did that happen? or was it just a rumor? President Monson's Talk on love was also inspiring. he talked about the commandment to love God and to love your neighbor. In 1 John 4:10 it talks about how God first loved us, so it's like a cycle of Love goin on down here. God loves every one of his children and we are first expected to Love God, then to love others, and when we love others, we will do things to help them feel the love God has for them which will help them develop a love for God. And then it just get's paid forward. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Hope you all had an awesome conference. I'd love to hear your insights on the talks so feel free to email me those!!! I was able to testify of the reality of a living prophet on the earth this week and watching him speak gave me another confirmation that he is called of God to lead and guide us in these days. I am so thankful that God doesn't expect us to make it back on our own, because I'm pretty sure I'd be very lost without people here to help me. Love you all! Have a great week! Thank you for the prayers! I can feel it for sure!

Love,

田长老