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

Week 55

Alright here we are once again! 

Yesterday we had a surprise MLC but they didn't want us to drive up because we have another one on saturday with Elder Oriordan of the Seventy that we will be going to so they had us skype in at the chapel. It was awful. It was us and the sister training leaders in a classroom in the church for like 4 hours. We got trained on how to recognize and help missionaries that are struggling with depression. and then halfway through the meeting the rest of the missionaries came to the chapel because it was their p-day and they played volleyball and basketball while we sat in that stupid room... hahah i was DYING.

We had zone conference this past week and it was great. During our lunch break president back got out 18 paddles and a tennis ball and we played a huge game of like four square, but it was with 18 squares and you had to use the paddle and no slamming (you had to hit it up). It was pretty sweet. haha i love president Back. He and sister back are probably the only reason i'm okay with sitting through long meetings in sydney. They are awesome.

This past week we were able to go visit Hoa and she told us that she needs some time to study the book of mormon. She feels like buddhism and our church both teach us to be good people and she is scared of all the rules in our church. SO pretty much she dropped us. She said we can go by whenever we want but she doesn't want to waste our time. We testified of the importance of christ in our lives and i hope as she reads the book of mormon she will come to know the importance of christ. But now it's between her and the Lord. She's great and it was tough to hear but she'll get it someday.

Nothing else really happened this week. We had like 6 people committed to come to church and ended up with 1 so that was disappointing. but we did meet a less-active family from africa which was pretty sweet. They said they will be coming to church this week so i'm happy about that.

Love you all! sorry this week's is so short. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Tingey

Week 54

Good week. Lots of good stuff happening. We picked up a few new investigators and the zone had two baptisms this week! One of the new investigators we met is named Jonathan. We had talked to this crazy guy from sri lanka the day before and the guy told us he lived in unit 12 and pointed us in a direction when we met him so we didn't have a street or a street number which made it difficult. So we ended up knocking like 5 different unit 12s and for some reason nobody answered any of the doors. So after the 4th one we kindof had one of those experiences where we were both disappointed but we just kindof kept walking. we didn't say anything to each other, we just kindof walked. and we walked past this guy who was working on his car so we asked him if he knew where a unit 12 was and he of course asked the street and house number which we told him we didn't have so he laughed at us, put his tools down and started walking with us. He's from africa somewhere, i can't remember which country, and his name is jonathan and he told us we could come back to see him! haha it was great. I love being in the right place at the right time.

 Last week for P-day we played sport at the chapel with the belconen elders. Elder Bowcut was still up in sydney picking up his trainee (Elder Smith) so there were only 6 of us there and the islanders only want to play volleyball so we played 3 on 3 volleyball which was pretty fun but then after we finished they showed us this video they had taken earlier that day. Now keep in mind their flat has 3 islanders and a palangi. but apparently what happened was they were driving and complaining about how its not even halfway through the month and they were all out of money and then elder Peleuale yells "stop the car!" so they stop on the side of the road and he gets out and starts running back and so they follow him and they all end up standing around a kangaroo that had become roadkill. so naturally they picked it up and tossed it in the boot and took it home. In the back yard they used kitchen knifes to skin it, gut it, and cut it into pieces to put it in the freezer. This was all on video that they showed me. It was hilarious. Then they made curry with it and they said there's extras so we are probably going to go give it a try. hahaha i just want to wait a bit to see if they all end up in the hospital or not....

We had a pretty hectic miracle happen to us this week. We were sitting down to plan one night, and we were talking about all our appointments that had fallen through and dreading what our numbers were going to look like this week when our phone buzzed! It was a text from a former named yang Bai. not sure if you remember her, but she dropped us about 6 weeks ago. when she dropped us she told us she was going through a hard time and couldn't meet with us, but the text she sent us said she had figured it all out and she wanted to meet up again! AND she said her boyfriend wanted to know "the jesus christ". :) so we set up an appointment and went over there on sunday. Found out she has moved to the uni housing and lives right next door to one of the members of our ward! so we taught her boyfriend, Violet, about the plan of salvation and how Jesus Christ plays such a pivotal role in that plan and yang bai was pretty much a member present for us! haha she's met with heaps of missionaries before and pretty much knows everything. She taught him how to pray right in front of us. haha then when we asked her to say the closing prayer she made Violet do it! hahaha it was awesome. One of the best first prayers i've ever been a part of. We all had our eyes open for most of it and she was telling him what to say and then our member present was explaining that you can say whatever you feel like and then we finished it up correctly and it was all good! He's really good. that would be some people you could pray for. yang bai and Violet. Once again, i'm not sure who is in charge of giving chinese people english names but it's cool. haha

We met with this chinese girl named Wilma this week and we talked about the restoration because most of the questions she asked us had to do with why there were so many churches and what was the difference between our church and the other christian churches. So we had a good talk about the restoration and every once in a while she would ask me to explain in chinese and i couldn't tell if she really didn't understand, or if she was just trying to test my chinese... haha but it went well. and after the lesson we were just chatting and she asked us if there were certain things we weren't allowed to do. I didn't want to get into all the commandments right then so i just listed off the 10 commandments for her and she then proceeded to ask if everyone followed those. I said yes and then she asked "what is the worst thing you've done in your life?" hahahahaha that definitely took me by surprise, but being as witty as i am, i asked back "what's the worst thing YOU'VE done in your life??" hahaha she just kindof laughed and said, "okay maybe lets just not talk about that..." hahaha it was funny. but we weren't done there. She then told us that she can do the chinese face and palm reading and this weird card reading which i'm pretty sure is like witchcraft, but hey, how many times to meet someone like that. So we asked her to read our faces. First thing she told us was that we are the first people she has ever met with green eyes, (weird, i know.) then she told me that my ears are a good shape and size. (means i'm very healthy) and then she said "it's hard to explain in english. can i use chinese?" so i said yes but speak slowly so then she went on to describe my nose and somthing about how my nose is not flat like chinese peoples'. and whatever else she said i have no idea but i don't think it was too bad.... hahah then she said my forehead was large which meant i'm smart, and then she told me that my eyebrows are thick, and she said something in chinese i didn't know so i asked her to say it in english and she said that it meant i'm a player..... i don't know if any of you realize how weird it was for me to have a chinese girl tell me that.... but hey, the face NEVER lies, right??? hahahahaha apparently my hands are good too because she told me i'm smart from them as well. hahahah all in all, i think it was pretty accurate. not sure if it's true doctrine, in fact i'm pretty much positive it's not, but it was funny. She's great but she doesn't want to have two on one lessons. she wants to sit in while we teach someone else. Not sure how we figure out how to do that, but we'll think of something.

This past week we started our diet, but it kindof got ruined by the two tongan baptisms that happened. Oh well, there are worse things that could happen than ruining a diet. We'll try again this week. Okay love you all! have a great week! I found out there's a zoo in canberra so i'm really excited to go there some p-day in the future! I have to give a talk at our zone conference this friday.... dang it. hahaha

Love,

Elder Tingey

Week 53

Alright so it was an extremely interesting week. Started off kinda sad. We went to visit Hoa because she hasn't been answering our calls or texts and we knocked on the door and she answered and invited us in, but her husband wasn't there so we had to stand at the door, but she told us that last week she had the baby and it passed away shortly after birth. Man, I felt so bad for her. I think that's the most pure sadness i've felt on my mission so far. She was so strong about it too. She said she was pretty depressed all last week, but she's getting better now. So we did all we could and testified of the plan of salvation and that she can live with that child forever. I think she appreciated it, but she doesn't really show emotion so it's hard to tell. Love her to death. Please pray for her and her family.

We had Zone Training meeting this past friday and because they got rid of the transfer meeting we decided to have the home-bound missionaries share their testimonies. It was great to hear them. Elder Whiting is the man. He said something that i really liked. He talked about how a lot of people will ask you Why you came on a mission, but he'd rather people asked why he stayed on a mission. I think that's really true. I definitely didn't fully know what to expect when i came out,  but when I was able to see the gospel bless people's lives and see how serving the Lord has changed me, i think that's why i'm still out here.

We got transfer calls on saturday. Elder Cheng got transferred. And he's going to......... CAMDEN. hahahahahah he was sooo mad. Not sure what he has in store for him there, but there's gotta be a reason. haha and elder Bowcut is training a missionary so he will pick him up tomorrow. It was pretty crazy without a transfer meeting, and we had to leave canberra at 6:00 am and drive everyone that got transferred up to a chapel in sydney and they had a few chapels as meeting points and they hired a van and a trailer and drove around picking everyone up and taking them to another chapel where they would be put in a car and taken to their new area. It worked out pretty well. But they were an hour late so there was no real reason to wake up half an hour early... but of course i would never make any sarcastic comments about that to anyone... hahaha It was funny because i drove up a car with two white missionaries and a chinese, and then drove back with 4 polynesians. hahaha it was an interesting switch. But while we were up in sydney we were at the same chapel as the people from wollongong and elder wang got transferred and he told me they had a baptism this past week of a man named Rio. He asked if i remembered him and i assured him i had never met anyone named Rio in Wollongong. He told me we taught him and then i realized that this whole time i had been calling our investigator Real the wrong name.... hahaha i don't know if you remember him, but he got baptized! He was the first person i ever did the first vision to in chinese! haha it was so cool to hear. Made me so happy. Tender mercies everywhere. We got a bunch of great missionaries in our zone and i think its going to be a great transfer.

We met with Jeremy and invited him to be baptized and he said it is something that needs to be seriously considered so he's going to be searching for an answer so if yous could pray for him that would be awesome. He's a stud.

Love you all! have a great week!

Love,

Elder Tingey

Week 52

Alright so it was another week in paradise here in Can "burrrrr" a. hahaha It's very cold here. It snowed on Friday. I THOUGHT I WAS GETTING AWAY FROM SNOW FOR TWO YEARS!!!! hahaha but anyways i'll tell you about the things i did this week.

On P-day we went laser tagging with all the elders. We were going to do a p-day with all the zone, but the sisters called sunday night and asked if they could do a sisters' zone p-day and we said okay because in all reality, it's much easier planning a zone p-day for just elders.... sorry becca. (plus we aren't allowed to go laser-tagging with sisters because there was an incident a while back....) So that was very fun. I don't know if this will make you proud of me or ashamed, but i came in second place in the first game. hahaha I was smashing it! It was lots of fun. The second game i got like sixth, but we'll just dwell on the first game.

I went on trade-offs with Elder Cheng on Wednesday and it was almost like old times, except we actually taught people! haha He's gotten a lot better. We met this guy named Grant who was pretty crazy. hahaha he was talking to me about this drug he did that is like shrooms, but you have hallucinations for like a week straight and some people go blind from it and he tried it twice. hahaha and that was part of his response to "so what role has religion played in your life?" hahahaha it was great. He was such a nice guy. But his flat was probably the scariest flat i've ever stepped foot in.

Thursday we did service for a sister in our ward. We mowed the lawn and cleaned out her raingutters. It took for flippin ever and i was standing on the ricketiest old ladder you've ever seen. It was proof that missionaries are watched over, because i probably should have fallen and died. but we finished up the service and she played the bagpipes for us. it was pretty sweet and we filmed it with the phone, and i figured out that i can put my microSD card into the camera and get the video so i'll try to send it to you. haha she's pretty cool. She's going to scottland for the world championships for bagpipe bands. So we wished her luck and she told us that if we want to learn, she will teach us how to play so maybe i will return home with some special skills!

Friday it snowed and we met with Jeremy and the Uni library. he's great. We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and he told us that he needs to increase his faith in christ so we had him read alma 32 and we are going to talk to him about it this friday. Haha he always says the prayer at the end of our lessons and he always forget's my companion's name so he says "thank you for sending Tian and his friend to help me learn the gospel" hahaha its awesome. He's pretty stoked that Jeremy Lynn went to the Lakers.

Saturday we were supposed to meet with Ruth, but she texted us and told us that she found a chinese church in Canberra so she doesn't want to meet anymore... DANGIT. I was so sad. I thought she was golden. But that's alright because we got a referral this week from Wollongong for a chinese girl named Wilma that we are meeting with on friday. Pray for her please!

Sunday we went to church and we got permission, because MLC was yesterday, to train up sunday night and sleep over at the Assistants' flat. So we drove up to Goulburn and then caught the train from there to sydney. It was about a 3 hr train ride. but the only problem was it stopped at the Syney Central Station which is totally in the North mission hahaha and it's about a 15 minute walk from the Opera house! hahaha but we were obedient missionaries and got right back on a train going toward mortdale and didn't do anything exciting. We were hoping to see some north missionaries at the station, so we could mess with them, but there weren't any. haha there's kind of a rivalry between the north and south missionaries even though we don't know each other, but from what i've heard, President howes, the north mission president, pretty much rigged the last transfer before the mission split so that all the good missionaries would be in the north and all the scrubs would be in the south. hahaha not sure if it's true or not, but everyone in the south that served under President Howes seems to not like him very much because of it...haha mission drama.

So yesterday was MLC and I had kindof a cool experience. So thursday night we do a conference call with all the Zone leaders and the APs and last thursday they told us that President was looking at getting rid of the transfer meeting and that we'd be discussing it at MLC. Now i love transfer meeting and i was so angry that they were trying to get rid of it. So for the next three days i mulled over in my head what i was going to say at MLC to get them to keep it. I got to the point where i felt like i had a pretty good argument for it, but for some reason on sunday night i said my prayers and asked for confirmation as to what should be done about transfer meeting and i was sitting in MLC getting ready to die a martyr for it and as President Back was bringing it up I felt the spirit so strongly and for some reason i just knew that getting rid of it would help the mission. Haha it was nuts how fast my heart changed on it. Cool how the spirit can do that. haha that's not to say i wasn't frustrated with some of the aspiring missionaries in there, but it was a good MLC.

We got a ride from the STLs back to Goulburn and then visited a less-active on our ward list. He invited us in and while we were talking and he told us that we were the first elders to get past the front door. and after we shared a message with him and his kids he invited us back for dinner! Man i'm really excited. he's awesome. It was a sweet miracle.

I got your package! It was awesome! the flash cards are perfect and we had a good laugh about the One-piece. hahaha i'd send you a picture, but i don't know if that's appropriate.... haha. the shirts fit and the tie is skucks. (Have i told yous about skucks? it means good looking haha) I almost cried when i saw the Hi-Chews. haha thank you soo much. and the A-1 and Ketchup are always a happy thing to get :) haha i don't know what was wrong with the mail, but i got a letter everyday for three days this week so they must have been backed up or something... but i'm getting your letters! don't even worry about it.

Okay there's my mid-way letter. haha it's week 52. Can't believe it. we're going to throw a party on thursday. It's crazy how fast the time has gone, and yet slow at the same time. i feel like i've been a missionary for ever, but it still feels like yesterday i was bummin around Holladay. haha weird. Love you all! have a good week!

Love,

Elder Tingey