Week 100 T-5

Well, it's week 100. Not sure how we got to this point, but i guess it had to come sooner or later. see, in my mind, i still have 2 years left... i'm probably going to be in denial until i step onto that airplane. 

This past week was pretty sweet. The mini mission went really well. our mini missionary was Elder Godinet from bankstown 1st ward. he was the man. i wish i was as prepared for my mission as he is. but i think that's how it's supposed to be. The rising generation should always be a step ahead of where we were. 

The beginning of the week was pretty slow. a lot of finding and walking around visiting names on the ward list. but from thursday to sunday we were goin hard all day every day. the mini mission started thursday morning at 7 am and we had a mini MTC where me and liao taught chinese and they had samoan and Tagalog classes as well. and then had classes on teaching the lessons. it was really good. i wish they had a mini mission in utah, but it doesn't really work when you have one companionship for a whole stake. whereas we have 16 companionships in the mortdale stake. but then we were out by 1 pmand we had a lesson with a former named Aiko up in the city and it went really well. she told us at the beginning that she is not going to join our church, but she did commit to pray by the time the lesson finished. so hopefully that goes well. and then later that afternoon we had a meeting with jack. Jack got cleared for baptism! he will be baptized not this sunday, but the sunday after. that should be the 19th... but i'm really excited for him. he was so happy and this sunday he is is going down to melbourne to watch his friend get baptized! haha small world, they both got found by the missionaries and are getting baptised at the same time! so we'll be praying and fasting for him as he prepares to be baptized. then we had MCM (our missionary correlation meeting with the branch mission leader) and after that went to a member's home for dinner. then friday we had district training meeting in the morning and we met up with joy! haha it's been so long! she's doing really good. she told us that she's been living the word of wisdom for about a month now! i was so happy to hear that. she's great. i just hope she receives an answer to her prayers soon. she's keeping all the commitments. so we're praying for her, and seeking inspiration as to how we can help. after joy we had some free time so we put up some posters advertising english class around hurstville. hopefully we get some takers. and we did some more finding. i talked to this girl named hana on the train. she specifically told me her name is spelled hana because her chinese name is Han so she just tossed an a at the end and called it good. haha she was cool. but she said she is interested in learning more about our church and what we believe so i gave her a plan of salvation pamphlet and taught her a little bit about our relationship with God. She seemed to really like it so that's good. friday night we had PEC and english class. it was really good because our investigator mr. chen came. and then he came to church! and brought his wife! and they both will be coming to english class this week. it was really basic beginning stuff, like talking about your family. but it was pretty fun because it reminded me of the MTC learning chinese and how hard we would always laugh because everyone's always making funny mistakes. like when this old chinese guy said that elder barlow is a girl. then saturday was the 4th of july!!!!!!!!! happy fourth everyone. we sang the national anthem (and we got our mini missionary to sing it with us) and then we had pizza and hot dogs for lunch. of course it wasn't american pizza or american hot dogs so they could be better, but it was pretty good. we met with a recent convert named Leon and then did a bunch of finding. Sunday was a typical sunday. Pretty flat-out. church was good. we had so many people there that we didn't have enough translation machines so i had to share with our mini missionary and listen to it in english... haha it will be weird to go home and not have translators in every class. i love church here. and then after church we had a meeting with jack again. we taught him about the church organisation and the priesthood. he is the man. and then we visited a potential who kindof tried to bible bash with us at the door, and elder liao was talking to her and then i piped in my bit and i'm not sure if it was the fact that i could speak chinese or the fact that i smashed her argument for not being willing to read the book of mormon, but she was a bit taken aback. haha that look on peoples face when a foreigner speaks chinese to them just never gets old. and then we had a fireside for the mini misionaries to finish it off and brake the fast. and that was my week! it was a great one. 

hope yous all have a wonderful week! i'll leave you on a spiritual note: i've re-started reading the book of mormon and i've got a schedule to finish by the end of my mission. i just finished 1 nephi today. but something that stuck out to me this run through was that 1 ne 3:7 is not the only time nephi says that we can do anything the lord commands us because he prepares a way for us with everything he commands. he talks about it multiple times. i know that it is true. God asks a lot of us, but he doesn't ask too much. and if we are willing, and have faith, he will prepare the way before us and that's when we can move mountains. Love you all! have a good week!

love,

Elder Tingey

Ps okay funny story, so it's not leaving you on a spiritual note but that's okay. i was calling an investigator one night and she doesn't speak any english so it was all in chinese and we were talking and she told me she met the other missionaries on the train! and that they told her my chinese is good because i get to practice a lot with my wife! hahahaha i was laughing pretty hard and trying to explain to her  that i'm not actually married. i'm guessing that he told her i practice with my companion and she took it as my wife... hahaha #missionaryprobs

Elder Godinet. the man.

happy independence day from the sydney harbor!