Week 33

Just another beautiful week in the GONG! Things are going great. I'm not sick and guess who's back down to 95 kilos?!?!?!?! I think the diet is working!! Hahaha but we were miserable last week, so we decided to throw the diet out the window, and try a new workout routine. I'm pretty confident that will work. Plus it's hard to keep a diet when members feed you...

This week we met some cool as people that we helped move into their new flat. They're from CHINA!!! Frank and Shelly are their American names. we spent most of Saturday with Frank and he is such a solid guy. He said shelly might want to study the bible with us and that would be awesome.

We started a new tradition of Wednesday night hot pot with all the Chinese speakers. One of the Chinese recent converts of the other elders was moving to Adelaide and so he gave them a hot pot stove. So now on Wednesday nights we go over and have some hot pot. spicy food doesnt' really bother me anymore. You could say I'm a Sichuan 的 人. It's funny because we'll go to white people's houses for dinner and they'll say, "it's pretty spicy. Sorry, I hope you're okay with that.." and then I can't even tell it's spicy at all! I just pound lao gan ma and rice all day.

I don't know if I've told you this, but our ward choir is like legit. We don't mess around. We're called the Wollongong Pipes. And the reason I'm telling you this is because yesterday I made the switch from bass to tenor. I know, I know, I'm crazy. But we've only got one other tenor so it doesnt' sound very good. We'll see how it goes, but judging from yesterday, we're gonna smash it. We're singing a song called "because he lives" for easter sunday.

I found a cool scripture in Corinthians that I figured I'd share with all yall. It's 1 Corinthians 15:10, I believe. if not, then its 10:15. But it is paul speaking. he talks in the verses before about how he felt unworthy because of the things he'd done in the past, and all the problems he caused the church. But then in that verse he says something that I really liked. He says "by the grace of God I am what I am." I loved that because It truly is the grace of God that brings each of us the point we are at right now. Everyone may be at different points on the journey, but Everyone has the same opportunity to progress and become something better tomorrow than they were today. We need to just look forward with faith, and then get going!

I'm really worried because transfers are only two weeks away, and elder barlow has been in Wollongong since we all got to Australia so he is most likely going to be transferred! Dangit! We've been having a party these last 4 weeks! hahaha it's funny how quick you can go from praying for change, to praying for things not to change! But it's okay. Whatever happens will just mean I need to learn something else.

This morning we were getting ready to leave and all of the sudden I heard elder barlow yelling from the other room. I go running in, and he is staring at the wall right above my head. I looked and there was a big old huntsman about the size of my palm right above my head. Hahaha we were all screaming. I tried to get a picture, but my camera was dead, so i'll have to try to get one of the other elders pictures. But next thing I know, barlow has the vacuum and is trying to suck the thing up, but it's running away and he is chasing it and knocking stuff over, and when he finally got it we all gave a victory cry. But then we were all scared it was going to crawl back up the hose so we started sucking up other stuff to make sure it died. We worked up enough courage to open it up, and found the carcass so we're pretty much sure he's dead.

Hope you're all having an amazing time watching all the basketball games without me. We have to do things to cheer ourselves up or else we would all fall into a deep depression over missing march madness. hahhaa kai wan Xiao. Lov eyou all! peace and blessings! Take luck!

Love,

Elder Tingey

Oh yeah, I was going to say this as well, but I forgot. We have Bats here! Heaps of them!! Every night they fly overhead. I think they live in the cliffs, and then they go out to the water for food every night. It's so cool. I thought they were birds when I first got here because they're about as big as cockatoos. It's nuts.

Week 32

Hello everyone! 

Sorry you're all probably in bed by now, but I can't really help it when the library's internet crashes and I have to email later in the day, okay? This week was a good one. We had trade offs with the Zone leaders, and so I went down to Dapto for a day. It was pretty cool. I'm pretty sure our zone as a whole is the most beautiful zone in the mission. The beaches are so awesome (even though we can't go to them until winter) and it's soooo green! I love it. While we were on trade-offs we had service for one of their less active members and I saw a Huntsman spider on their sliding glass door. It was about as big as my hand and I'm pretty sure it could have eaten a small dog. hahaha those ones aren't poisonous, actually. they just look scary. It's the redbacks that are dangerous. they're little tiny black ones with red backs and when they bite you, it eats away at the flesh around the bite but only under the skin so the skin goes all black and then if you break the skin there's just a big hole in you.  This week our bishop couldn't make it to church because his arm had swollen to the size of his leg from a spider bite. not sure which one. hahaha good thing missionaries are watched out for, right??

We had a bunch of potentials this week that we contacted on the street, and got their phone numbers, but when we called them, three were wrong numbers... that's awkward.... hahaha I hate when that happens... But we've still got some solid potential.

The chinese is coming along. I've decided that the biggest thing holding me back is my vocabulary. So I've been really trying to learn new words. It gets frustrating sometimes, but there's nothing better than seeing the look on people's faces when we start speaking chinese to them. We're trying to set up an English as a second language class to teach, so hopefully that works out. We just don't really have a place to hold it so we're trying to work through the university. I feel like that will really help us find some new investigators.

One of the other elders keeps talking about how he wants china to open and every time we have a conference or anything that president Lew might come to he tries to convince us that it's our time. hahaha we've all decided that if they open china, we will all extend our missions for a year. so get ready for that. We all want a little bit of that native Beijing Huar!!!!!

things are amazing in Wollongong. It's like perfect weather, and from what everyone says, it will be like this for the next 3 months. It rains a lot, but I like it. especially since we have a car... speaking of which, I am officially starting a diet today. Me and elder barlow drew it up during weekly planning because we both have gained too much weight. And I'm scared I might be in a car my whole mission. so we are going to go hard in the mornings for personal excercize and then eat great and lose all the weight. (I'm 99 kilos)

Love you all! We had a less active in our ward take us to a bunch of lookouts today and there are some amazing views! alright, love yous heaps!

-田长老

Week 31

Well okay here we are. 

Already in week three of this transfer. iT's FLYING by! I just want it to slow down for two seconds! hahaha this past week was a crazy one. we had zone p-day on Friday so Monday was only a half p-day. they do it that way because everyone went to dapto for Zone training meeting which only happens once a month so after ZTM we all went to a park in dapto and played touch rugby for like 4 hours. (the sisters went shopping) But also it has to be done that way because everyone is so far apart. 

our zone goes from Wollongong out to Mittagong down past dapto and Nowra down to Naruma. It's pretty big and takes a few hours for the naruma elders to get up here. there's only 4 sisters in the zone and all 4 are in Wollongong. Then Saturday was the stake athletics carnival so i got to go see all the people from Camden ward that i said goodbye to a couple weeks ago... hahaha it was cool, though. I like having questions to answer so please send me some because it gives me something to write about. 

My day is pretty much the same. still get up at 6:30 and exercise then study til 11 and have lunch and go out proselyting. It's how we spend our time that's a bit different. In Camden it seemed like we had a lot of less actives to visit, but not much variation in our finding activities, but here there aren't a ton of less actives to visit but there are lots more finding opportunites here. We don't get to proselyte on the campus of the Uni, but we can contact people at the bus stop outside it. So we do that a lot, but so do the other 6 elders so we have to go when there aren't any other missionaries there. We can go sight seeing on P-days, but we don't always go. There's a member that will sometimes take the missionaries around to the different sightseeing places. We're going to a lookout place next week. I think today we will go to the lighthouse, but no solid plans. We usually get 3 dinner appointments a week other than that we cook for ourselves. we don't go out to eat as much as i did in Camden which saves us money so we aren't as tight at the end of the month. Plus elder Hixson makes a MEAN spaghetti. hahaha we eat that at least once a week. We don't have many investigators, we've got one that has been investigating for 28 years and he comes to church every week with his wife and kids who are members. he's a cool guy. brother Tzanis. from Greece. We play basketball every Friday night with investigators and less actives and members, and on Friday someone showed up that nobody knew so i started talking to him and he told me he just came because his friend wanted to come play basketball. His name is Jins (sounds like Jince) he is from india and he was so awesome. He's a Christian and we sat and talked for like 45 minutes about religion and what it does for people. we're hoping to meet with him again this week. The chinese is going well. we get to talk to people all the time, but they usually can't really understand us, and when they talk i get so lost so fast it's not really even funny. But I'm improving and that's what matters, right?

We have a zone conference this week up in Macarthur. I'm excited for that. It's always good to get a training from President Lew and the Assistants.

This sunday we were talking about faith and repentance in Elders quorum and somehow we started talking about the holy ghost and someone had a realy good insight. They said that promptings from the holy ghost are usually not rational. They usually require us to alter our current course of action and do something in faith. And if we don't heed those spiritual promptings, and we continue on our current course of action, then our inertia increases, or our ability to change course decreases. So that the next time we are prompted to change course, it will be harder to do so. I really liked that i thought it would be good to share with all of you. So when you feel a prompting from the holy ghost, FOLLOW IT! haha okay i love you all. This is my report for this week. If you have any questions feel free to email me and ask.

Week 30

Nimen Hao!

Alright sorry about last week i was in a rush and had to go through a bunch of emails because it got messed up since P day was on tuesday last week. But it's all goods now. I'll Try to remember what i was going to tell you last week and I will try to answer the questions mom sent me. 

So on tuesday of two weeks ago i went on trade-offs with Elder Coats. This was still when i was back in Camden. But we decided to do some former investigator work because he found a huge folder full of formers in his flat, so we went out walking and had a woman named jenny we were going to visit, but we accidentally walked past her street and by the time we realized, it would have been easier for us to just hit it on the way back to the flat so we just pressed onward. Twenty minutes later we were walking and a woman was staring at us from across the street so we waved and said hello and she started walking towards us! So we crossed the street and talked to her. After a bit of small talk we asked what her name was and she said it was Jenny! We showed her the address we had and she said "that's Me!" hahaha it was such a miracle. We set up an appointment for the missionaries to come by and then we kept on our way. I love it when that happens!

The mission Conference with Elder Nelson was really amazing. It's hard to explain how cool it is to be in the presence of an apostle, but All i can say is, He is definitely a servant of the Lord. 

To answer Mom's questions, I was not the only one to get transferred out of Camden. My Companion, Elder Cheng also got transferred and he is down in Canberra with Elder Ward! hahaha funny how that works out! I got called on saturday morning by president and he asked me to be a district leader in a different area and i said i would be fine with that. So i said goodbye to everyone on saturday and sunday and packed my bags and left with Elder Cheng monday morning to go to transfer meeting. When i got to the mission office, they had all the new companionships posted on a big rolling whiteboard so i found my name and then looked for everyone else i knew. Then we had a meeting where all the missionaries that were going home stood up and got to give a final testimony. It was a great meeting. Then we were given travel details and i got into a corolla that is so sad compared to the holden, and drove down to Wollongong with Elder Quass. The drive was amazing. Rainforests and Ocean views and i was just getting so excited. My flat has two rooms that we use for study, a laundry room that has our shower in it, the toilet is separate from the shower, a kitchen, and a living room where our beds are, and a balcony that can barely fit two chairs on it... hahah it's great though. There are four elders in my flat. Me, elder Barlow, elder Hixson, and elder Wang. Elder wang is from sichuan and he was in elder Cheng's ward back in china! small world. It's been great with Elder Barlow. It feels like we're back in the MTC. I'm loving it. We don't have many investigators, but theres heaps more opportunities to find here. There's a bus stop outside the university campus that we go to contact people like once a week at least and i've used chinese almost every day that i've been here and it has made me realize just how bad my chinese is. hahaha I have an ongoing joke with Elder Wang where i just look at him when he talks to me, and then turn away and say "Yongheng de ting bu dong" which means "eternally listening, but not understanding" or something like that. maybe dad knows a better translation. It's okay, though because elder wang said my pronunciation is really good and that i have a mainland China accent! That made me so happy you don't even understand. and speaking of accents, i have now had two people tell me that i don't have an American accent so ya, i'm pretty much an aussie now.

The ward is great. I got to introduce myself in sacrament meeting and told a joke over the pulpit and brought the house down hahaha just kidding but i'm really excited. We have an awesome ward mission leader, and i think i'm really going to like serving here. All the missionaries are in the choir and here in wollongong we dont muk around when it comes to choir. We're called the wollongong pipes and we're pretty good if i do say so myself. hahah It's fun.  i Love it. We have a stake athletics carnival this saturday and Camden is still in our stake so i will get to see all the people from camden that show up! hahah Excited for that. 

Lvoe you all. hope you enjoy this novel of a letter! hahaha i'm working on writing another letter so mayb3e you'll see that in a few weeks!hahaha i'm slack, i know! Love you, the church is true. Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God and i know that with all my heart. Go do something missionary-like! 

love,

Elder tingey

Week 29

And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for........ 

Elder Tingey has been transferred........... To......... WOLLONGONG!!!! 

I'm so flippin excited! And guess what! My companion is Elder Barlow!!!!!! hahahahaha I died when I saw it. And elder Hixson is in my flat!!!! So awesome. Just the drive alone from mortdale down to The GONG, as the call it here, was soooo beautiful! Go look up pictures, cuz this place is paradise! The combo of beach and cliffs and rainforest is just so awesome! 

I had to say goodbye on sunday to everyone and that was a lot harder than I was expecting. Camden ward is a good place with some good people in it. It's amazing how life can change completely so quickly and all you can do is move forward and keep doing the best you can. Literally the only constant thing about missionary work is our message. And that in and of itself is what is really cool. no matter if I'm speaking English, Chinese, or samoan, jesus is still the Christ, yesu hai shi jidu. so awesome. K I'm going to have to cut this short because we are going to the Buddhist temple today and we have to leave and I spent all my time reading the 35 emails I had... hahaha too much love for elder tingey.

The conference was amazing with elder Nelson. There is not much cooler than being in the presence of an apostle. It seemed to me like his message was pretty much "you may not be much, but you're all the Lord's got." hahaha that might seem blunt, but it's pretty true. he talked about how the lord has a pattern of using the unlikely to accomplish the impossible. David and goliath, the virgin mary, joseph smith...Elder tingey.... hahaha but it's true. And when I got into my new flat, there was a quote on the wall that said "two people can do anything if one of them is God." Such an awesome quote. Remember that what we are asked to do sometimes may seem unlikely for us to accomplish, and somethimes it feels impossible, but with the lord, somehow it happens and it ends up working out just fine.

Things are going good. I'm so excited for this transfer. There's a uni in Wollongong so there's heaps of Chinese people here! so happy. Love you all! Sorry this is really short and you probably have heaps of questions, but i'll try to talk more next week! hahaha love you!!!!

love,

Elder tingey

Week 28

This week was good. I got to give a baptismal interview which was awesome! I was really nervous that something was going to come up and i wouldn't know how to deal with it, but Elder Phillips and Elder Katene had prepared her really well for baptism. She smashed all the questions. She got baptized on saturday and confirmed on sunday.

We got to stop by a Less-active Family on thursday and talk to the father. We shared a message about faith and after we had finished he asked us to stay for a bit and have an ice block (popcicle). We talked for about half an hour after that about his mission in Tonga. It was so awesome. He has such strong faith. 

It seemed like all the appointments we set this week fell through and all the people we went to visit weren't home or were busy, so it was kindof a long week, but on saturday Bishop gave us a list of people whose records had just been moved into our ward, but they haven't been to church so we are going to go visit them. That's always an exciting thing, so wish us luck! 

This week is going to be a crazy one. I'm going on trade offs tomorrow with Elder Coats, then Wednesday we have the conference with Elder Nelson, and wednesday night we are going up to Minto to teach a Chinese investigator because they don't have any chinese speaking missionaries there, and his english isn't very good, and his wife is samoan and can't speak a lick of chinese. Just goes to show how much they really love each other. and then on thursday we are going on splits with one of the Bishopric members and Friday we have a big service project and saturday we also have a big service project and we get transfer calls. I talked to Elder Hixson and elder Barlow yesterday because there was a big south pacific area broadcast at the stake center and all missionaries in the stake had to go and They are both in Wollongong and said they speak chinese every day. I'm not saying i want to get transferred, but someday i hope to use my language. I think one of us in Camden will get transferred. Not sure which one it will be, but i think someone will. 

I've been studying the New Testament to learn more about Christ's life and how i can be more like him. He truly was amazing. He was the perfect example in every aspect of life. Like it says in ether 12:27 "if men come unto me i will show unto them their weakness". It's like comparing those paint chips. Sometimes you can't tell that one is off-white until you hold it up to something perfectly white. That's when we can see where we need to improve and if we humble ourselves, we can become that perfect shade of white. 

Hope everyone had a wonderful valentines day. Love you all so very much, and i hope you kept an eye on mom so she couldn't sneak out and put valentines on the porch. And there were probably just roses on the porch and a Symphony bar from dad! Hahaha man i miss you guys so much! Love you heaps!

Love,

Elder Tingey

I'm just so thankful that at least my FAMILY knows how to spell my name...

The Duck tongue was actually pretty good. And then this week Elder Peleuale came back to the flat one night all excited because he got ahold of some chicken necks! hahaha We cooked them up and had a feed on friday. They tasted great, there just wasn't a whole ton of meat on them.

I got the Valentine's package!!! Thank you sooooo much! Send everyone's moms my love! 

at the temple. with some people from the zone. for some reason nobody got into the picture. And i put it on self timer. pretty dang good photography if you ask me.

Week 27

ALRIGHTY THEN,

What a week, what a week. We had an awesome week. Do you want me to tell you about our week? okay i will. So this week we had our ward conference. Poor bishop, got put in and has 3 weeks to get ready for ward conference. It was a really awesome meeting, but the cool thing was the week leading up to it. Bishop wanted to really push for Less actives to be there so we went on heaps of rescue visits. There are a bunch of names on our ward list that i have never heard/met before. So Elder Cheng and I spend a lot of the week visiting these people and inviting them to ward conference. I'll tell you less-active work is probably the most rollercoaster-like a mission gets. Street contacting you know you will usually get ignored and rejected, and tracting you will most likely get told no thank you or the door slammed in your face. Visiting members is always easy and happy and usually unproductive, but with Less actives you just don't know. There were some people that were really cool and would let us in and talk to us for AGES and when we would invite them to church they would either accept, or tell us that now just isn't the time for them.... that's the worst. But We went to visit the relief society president's husband, who is less active. We talked for a while and he was HECTIC! AND he came to ward conference! So sweet. I love when that happens. 

This week President Lew decided to show up to our Zone Training Meeting on friday. It was really awesome to have him there. He brings a spirit to meetings that just makes everyone more receptive to the spirit. Elder PHillips and Elder Katene gave an amazing training and we had lunch as a zone after it was done. (the sisters were nice enough to make it for us) 

Things are going pretty good. Life is difficult. Missions are no different. The difficulties are different, but hard is hard no matter what it is that makes it hard. Bishop spoke on Patriarchal blessings on sunday so i took the opportunity to read over mine as well as my setting apart and father's blessing. Man i'm so happy i have all of those. It's odd how it takes certain experiences to make certain parts pop out at you, but there's always something good in there. Speaking of which, I think i might have sent my farewell talk home when i left the MTC on accident cuz i can't find it anywhere... Could you send that to me? 

We went to the Temple today and it was awesome. That's why this is coming at such a weird time. It took for flippin ever to get back to camden. But that's okay. TOtally worth it. 

Okay mom is probably mad that this email isn't longer, but i'm struggling for things to say. District leader stuff is going well. I have my first baptismal interview on thursday with the zone leaders investigator Tiara so hopefully i don't totally mess it up. WE've got a sweet district and it's fun to serve them. 

Love you heaps. Love being a missionary! Love the gospel. Love it all. that's really the only reason we do anything here is because of love, so remember that this Valentines' season:)

Love,

Elder Tingey

also, i left my camera in the car so you will have to wait until next week for pictures. I think i have a few.