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