Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Week 61

Well okay here we are. 

haha this is the most messed up week ever. Monday was a public holiday (again) so all the libraries were closed and tuesday we had MLC up in Sydney so they told all the zone leaders and sister training leaders they could choose between monday and wednesday for their P-day so we decided to go visit some people up in goulburn on monday and drive up to sydney monday night, stay at the APs flat and take p-day on wednesday. and then tomorrow we have trade-offs with the assistants so they're coming down tonight and then friday we are doing our zone training meeting and saturday and sunday is conference. haha not one just normal day of proselyting this week. and that is why i'm emailing at such a random time. Also they just made the parking at the library $5 so if ever you just don't get an email from me you can assume that yous just aren't worth the $5. hahaha just kidding!

MLC was good. just sometimes i feel like we have too many chiefs and not enough indians up there. I was getting close to just flipping the table and walking out. haha but it's a good thing i've been studying chapter 6 of preach my gospel! The meeting started at 9:00 and we had to leave at 3:30 so we could drive home and it was still in full swing. they did feed us lunch which was pretty good. i just can't be in a meeting for that long. i get distracted after a few hours.

okay mom wants me to talk about all my investigators and stuff. The peruvian woman we dropped because we tried to visit her a few more times and we kept getting hindu bashed and they always just told us she was out of town and they didn't know when she was supposed to get back. haha so we are moving on! The three african guys we can't go visit because of the rule about teaching people of the islam faith.... awkward... haha not sure what happened up in sydney, but i know it's all under control. you don't have to worry. even though i'm serving in the nation's capital which is probably the highest likely target of a terrorist attack. hahaha really though, it is all under control. I don't feel in danger at all. 

Jimmy is doin great. he's still on for baptism on the 18th. his auntie and brother came to visit from china and he brought them to church. and he showed up in a suit! haha he's the man. and he told our ward mission leader that he wants to serve a mission like us after he finishes school! he really is the man. pray hard for us to keep his date the 18th. we have a few things still to teach him. Karka we weren't able to meet up with this week. nobody answered on saturday when we went to visit and we dropped by sunday and she said she had visitors so we will go by later this week. i'll have to ask president about maybe having a temple square missionary help out. we'll see if she understands much of the book of mormon. Wilma is doing good. she just is very busy with school and she told us that in early november she will be moving up to sydney so right now we are reading the book of mormon with her. she told us she hasn't felt much from reading the book of mormon yet, but when she prays she feels peaceful. She's great.

Elder Katene is from a small farming town in New Zealand on the west coast of the North Island. It's called Talinuky (or at least that's what it kindof sounds like. you never know with those kiwi accents) he's the man. he's been out for a little longer than me. he was my zone leader when i was in camden. it's funny because camden is in macarthur zone, and macarthur zone has heaps of problems all the time. like missionaries getting sent home, problems. so he is very experienced with dealing with problems. haha but he took a breath of fresh air when he came to canberra because i told him that in 3 transfers i haven't had to do very much as far as big issues go. and that's why it's so nice being zone leader in canberra. haha except for the fact that nobody has any idea who you are when you go to conferences and stuff. It's been a big change to go from elder Bryce to elder Katene. haha i went from GO GO GO to way more kick back. He's hard working, but he does it in an islander way. We laugh all the time. I love it. Good times.

Well i hope you all had a great week and enjoyed conference and played slow motion football inbetween the sessions! haha i miss that. I'm really excited for conference. it's going to be great. and its my birthday! i'm not sure if i got the package for my birthday yet. i don't think i did, but the sister training leaders got the mail from the office before us (gotta love sisters) so i'm not sure. i'll find out on friday. If not that's okay because we are having a big hot-pot party for our dinner hour on sunday. it will be great. don't you worry about it.
Love you all! The church is true! have a good week!


-Elder tingey

Week 60

Pretty sweet week this week. 

First of all, there is nothing better than having a polynesian companion. and i'll tell you why. Because polynesians have an unspoken language with other polynesians that involves the offering of food. I'll explain what i mean with an example. Last night we were in trouble because our P-day got switched to tuesday so we were running very low on food. the pantry was empty except for rice. and we had some milk and oranges and frozen veggies in the fridge. So we decided to go out and visit people and hope for a miracle. SO westart out and are getting nothing. and we finally end up at a less-active's house and she is also from new zealand of maori descent. we were having a chat and suddenly, she looks at elder Katene and asks the most inspired question i've heard on my mission thus far: Have you eaten yet? and that was it. she ordered fish and chips for us and the left-overs are sititng in our fridge because of course there was an absurd amount that there was no way we could have finished in one sitting. haha i love it. and we realized that people, regardless of race, ALWAYS assume a polynesian is hungry. So we seem to get fed more often than when its just two white elders.

Second of all, Jimmy is smashing it. He's read heaps of the book of mormon and seems to really enjoy it. He's the man. We taught him the plan of salvation and clarified some of the things in the first 10 chapters of the book of mormon. we're just hoping to get some more fellowship in the ward for him. We taught wilma this week and she told us that she feels like she has 60% faith. haha but i think that's really good. she's really cool. We also had a smash lesson with karka last night. I think the main thing keeping her from progressing is that they don't have the book of mormon in her native language. so last night we committed her5 to read it in english and take it really slow and underline everything she doesn't understand and we'd go through it with her and explain it all. it was a good lesson and the spirit was really strong She's really cool. and her family is the best. they always give us cool asian lollies when we go over there. Yang bai and violet have dropped off until the end of the semester which is oct 22. so they'll be on hold for a bit here. This past week elder bowcut had a potential that he talked to start texting him and getting a little too close. and finally sent him a very explicit text that made elder bowcut text back and ask that they never contact him again. See the problem is, it was a man from sri lanka.... hahahahahaha

Third, a couple weeks ago there was some terrorist activity going on up Sydney so all the missionaries are not supposed to visit muslims. pretty crazy. not surre if i already told you that... hope not. We're going on an adventure today for P-day because it's the end of the month and we have like 300 extra k's. so we don't really have a plan, but its just going to be an adventure.

Love you all! hope you are livin it up! The weather is beautiful now. and it's just in time for my birthday! and i get to go to general conference on my birthday! that's like the best present ever. haha i'm so excited for general conference. getting my questions and stuff ready. hope you are all doing the same!

love,

田长老

Week 59

Man. another great week. This is going to be a short email because i don't have tons of time today.

We got transfer calls on saturday. Elder Bryce got transferred and he went to the cantonese branch up in sydney so he was really excited about that. i'm happy for him. Just wish there was a mandarin branch in our mission. haha i guess canberra is my mandarin branch... My new companion is Elder Katene. He's from new zealand and he's maori. he's the man. Totally hilarious. We're going to have a good time this transfer. I'll get a picture of us together and send it to you next week.

On friday there was a big farewell party for a senior missionary couple who went home yesterday. It was pretty big because they have only been in canberra the whole 18 months so everyone knows them really well. But they got permission from president back that all the missionaries could come to it so we went and were mingling with all the people and then they got on the microphone and said the program would be starting so everyone needed to take their seats. Most people were already in their seats because that's how normal people are, but missionaries are the ones who are supposed to mingle with everyone to find the nonmembers there. so we go to take our seats and there are only the ones on the front row left so we all sit down in this big row in the front and this polynesian brother gets up and starts playing the guitar and singing and it was pretty good and we were all happy, having a good time. and then they announced that the next performance would be a hawaiian dance... and these two girls come out and start doing this dance, but this was in the cultural hall so they're just doing it in front of the crowd on the same level. And at first it was fine. just the typical hawaiian dancing, but then the beat started getting really fast and the girl turns around and starts doing the thing where they move their hips really fast and it got awkward for us really fast... haha suddenly my empty plate of food became really interesting to look at... hahaha luckily i was sitting off to the side but one of our elders was sitting literally right in front of her and we look over at him and he has his head looking down and is reading his scriptures! hahah had his full quad out and was reading them! hahahahaha i was dying. The life of a missionary:)

Jimmy came to church again and loved it. We taught him the restoration during the week and he loved it. He's on date now for the 18 of Oct. Please pray for him. He told us that he has been reading some jehovah witness stuff so hopefully he sees through it because they have some really messed up ideas. Its the week after break this week so there's a lot of assignments due and quizes apparently. i swear they always have quizes. haha
Love you all! have a wonderful week! Church is true!


-Elder Tingey

Week 58

Alright what a week. 

First off, thank you to everyone who is praying for sister Levine. She is improving, but is not out of the woods yet! Please keep her and her family in your prayers this week. We visited last p-day and her parents were doing okay. it's been cool to see everyone pull together. we have missionaries, members, less-actives, and nonmembers all praying for her.
A quick shout out to Sister Katie Nydegger, having her farewell today. She's going to be a smash missionary.

We had an investigator committed to come to church last week and he never showed up and then he texted us later that night and told us that he took the bus to the suburb where our church is, then walked around for an hour and a half, looking for it. Then asked the people at the shops where it was and they had no idea and then his phone died so he couldn't call us so he went home. haha poor guy. then the other elders had a baptism yesterday for the friend of one of the recent converts in the ward so we invited him to come see it. We were a bit nervous that his first contact with the church would be a baptism, but it went great! He loved it and came to church yesterday and loved that as well. He told us that he wants to come to church for the rest of the time he's in canberra. His name is jimmy. He's chinese and he's a uni student at ANU. I've been trying to get an ANU t-shirt, but they're really expensive. we'll see if i can get one from a reject shop or something. But Jimmy is awesome. I'm really excited for him.

Our YSA advisors just told us that they have a list of about 150 chinese ysa less-actives taht they want us to find out if they still live here or if they have moved back to china so i'm, really excited to go find them all. I'm really praying that i don't get transferred. This is the last week of transfers. I really like our zone so i hope not too many people get transferred. (plus it's the biggest pain to get everyone with their luggage all the way up to sydney)

On thursday we went to visit a referral that the Tuggeranong elders gave us. Her name is jacklynn and she is from Peru. We walked in and she took us into this meditation room that had hardwood floors with these little pillows on the floor and there were pictures of those hindu gods and goddesses all over the walls so i knew we were in for an interesting lesson. but we start talking and ask her what her religious background is and she says Christian. haha so then i was just really confused. (remember i'm trying to sit cross-legged on a tiny pillow this whole time until i gave up and just stretched my leggs out straight...curse my bad hips) but she tells us that she has a book of mormon and she used to meet with her group in the same building the mormons met in when she was living in equador. so she's interested in it. and she loved that we don't believe in the trinity! haha it was pretty cool. We're meeting with her this thursday to talk more.

We visited some potentials last night. It's three guys from africa. They don't have that great of english and they're all muslim so it was pretty interesting, but they were way cool and i think we're going to play basketball sometime.

Life is going pretty good. Loving australia, especially since it's getting a bit warmer. Love you all! have a great week! the church is true!

-Elder Tingey


Week 57

Okay it was a very interesting week. 

Lots of interesting things happened. First of all, i don't know if you have heard, but there was a sister in our zone that was hit by a car on friday afternoon. Her name is sister Kendall levine and i'm pretty sure ther is a facebook group for her. I don't know a lot about it, but I guess she was driving with her companion and they saw a double rainbow so they pulled off the road and parked on the grass (that's totally kosher here in australia, by the way) and got out to take the picture. as she was getting back in, a car lost control or got distracted or something like that and went off the road and hit a tree then bounced off and hit her and the car she was getting into. She was rushed to the hospital and right now she's in critical but stable condition. She is in a coma right now. somehow she didn't brake any bones, but just has bruising and cuts. I think she had some bruising on her brain so they had to do surgery to relieve the pressure. Her parents landed in australia yesterday and got to canberra last night. She can use all the prayers she can get so please pray for her. It's been amazing to see all the miracles that have surrounded the whole situation. we had a baptismal interview that night we had to do and somehow the other elders were near the flat and they met us there so that we could do trade-off so that i could go do the interview and elder bryce could go to the hospital. We had two appointments cancel on us that day. one for us, one for the other elders, and we were supposed to do a mini mission this weekend and that fell through as well. and there's other stuff as well. just proves to me, that even through tragedy, the lord is watching out for his servants!

We had a pretty good week as far as the work goes. 5 people showed up to church! haha it was great. One of our investigators brought his friend who turned out to be a member that got baptized near wagga wagga and then moved up here like 2 weeks ago! It was pretty cool. Then Yang Bai and Violet came as well! They said they enjoyed it and one of our members invited them to institute on tuesdays and they said they were going to go! That will be really good for them i think. We had a woman named amanda smith that came and told us that she was good friends with one of the less actives that the sisters are working with so they sat together. i think we might turn her over to the sisters because she's a single sister and if theyre working with her friend then they can just get them both at the same time! haha Wilma told us she's too tired to come to church at 9:30... dang it.

I was at the bus stop and these two chinese girls walked up and were looking at the map and talking about the busses in chinsese so i meandered my way over and looked at it for a second, and then turned to them and asked in chinese which route went to the city the fastest? haha and once again they started freaking out and we started talking. i guess she's already a christian and goes to some chinese church in the city. dang it. we need a chinese branch. But she said she'd be interested in meeting with us so i asked if i could have her phone number (which by the way is really weird when it's a girl my age) so she took my planner and when she gave it back she had written her phone number along with her QQ number which is the chinese facebook so i'm not sure what to do with that... i guess just save it until i get home? hahaha

This past weekend was the mid-autumn festival in china. We went to ANU to meet an investigator and there was all this stuff set up for a party so we asked the nearest chinese guy what it was for and he told us about the festival. i guess its for like the harvest or something. (the reason we asked a chinese guy is because it's pretty easy to tell if it's an aussie party or a chinese party just by the decorations) So that was exciting. and while we were there this guy came up and talked to us, which usually doesn't happen. but he's from idaho so he knows missionaries, but he's not a member and he can speak chinese. It was pretty cool.

Other than that i don't think there's anything much to tell. Have i told yous already that elder bowcut who i live with went to Lone peak and knows Crystal? totally true. Okay love you all! have a great week! Pray for sister Levine!

Love,

Elder tingey

Week 56

Well alright this is comin a bit late, but there's a good reason for it. So two weeks ago one of the recent converts in our ward asked if my companion and i could help him out with some service and of course we agreed so it comes to our knowledge that he needs our help on a monday..... haha but we thought it would be okay because he asked if we could come at 9:00 AM so we figured we wouldn't miss too much of P-day. Nek minute, we were with him until 3:30. haha so we are just barely getting to email. Good news is not a ton happened this week. haha just kidding. that's not really good news.

So today is the first day of september so the past week was the last week of the month so funds were running a bit slim. haha after we did our grocery shopping i had 5 dollars for the rest of the week. and that should have been fine, except we had to go to sydney on saturday for another MLC which not only took out a whole day of proselyting, but we had to buy lunch and dinner on the way up and back. SO, because i'm an eagle scout and i'm always prepared, i started a search through our flat for spare change. Now australia has a 1 dollar coin and a 2 dollar coin that are very popular so after turning over the sofa and pulling the beds out i was able to end up with 13 dollars to buy food with so i was really excited about that. and then the miracle of the week happened... The sisters that drove us up to sydney brought food for the car ride! haha just goes to show you that prayers are answered.
The MLC on saturday was with one of the area 70 and it was really good. Pretty much he came and told us that our mission has gone through a lot the past while and our numbers are really low. (we baptized 16 as a mission this past month which doesn't really match up with the 1 baptism per companionship per month standard they have set) so we talked a lot about it. basically the main thing that happened was that we kneeled down as a council and prayed about how we can get the mission to the point of 1 baptism per companionship per month. It was really cool and we've got some great goals and plans to get us to that point. I'm really excited about it. It was funny, though, because the area 70 (his name is elder Oriordan) told us that a couple months ago the brisbane mission had 107 baptisms in one month. and so later we were talking about how we can get to that point because 107 is exactly 1 baptism per companionship and one of the zone leaders raised his hand and said, "well, we could get some professional footy (rugby) players called to our mission." haha now the reason that is funny is because the Assistant to the president of the Brisbane mission was a guy named Will Hopoate and he was a professional footy player before his mission and he gave up a million dollar contract to serve a mission and now he's playing professional ball again and they used to hold firesides up there where he would just speak and people would just come to hear him and then the missionaries would just pick off the non-members like snipers. and it was funny because all of us were thinking it, he just had the guts to say it to an area 70....Elder Oriordan just kindof laughed and told us that if we have resources we need to use them. so we'll see what kindof things missionaries come up with.

We met up with a man named Jonathan yesterday. I don't know if i've told you about jonathan yet, but he is from sierra leone and we've met with him a couple times now. He grew up with a heavy christian and muslim influence. so he reads the bible, but isn't sure if he believes in jesus as the christ. so we've been talking to him a lot about the plan of salvation and how christ is a key part of it. Yesterday we were talking about the book of mormon and we talked about how if the book of mormon is true then our church is the true church of jesus christ on the earth and we asked what it would mean to him if there was a true church on the earth and his reply was "what would it mean to me if someone offered me limitless riches?" so we asked him if he found out the book of mormon was true if he would be baptized and he smiled way big and said, YES! it was pretty sweet. I'm really excited to keep meeting with him.

Okay that's pretty much it for this week. hope you are all enjoying saint george! and sarah and john on another cruise! livin the high life! haha love you all. have a great week!


-Elder Tingey