Week 99 T-6

Alright another great week in beautiful Sydney Australia! 

It started off a bit rough but finished strong. On monday we were playing footy with a bunch of elders in the zone and elder barlow went to step, and his ankle gave out on him and there was this really loud pop and he went down. after a couple days of going to doctors and getting x-rays we found out that he fractured his tibia down near the ankle and he's in a boot for the next 6 weeks, so pretty much the rest of his mission. the poor guy can't put any pressure on it so we had to do some trade-offs to cover their appointments. it was pretty interesting, but we did manage to get some work done in our area and found a couple new investigators. one of them was found on trade-offs when i was out of the area so i'm not too sure who he is, but elder Liao said he had a lot of good questions so that should be good. This weekend the train line that goes through hurstville was having work done so we had to take the buses and it was a nightmare. took about 4 times as long to drive than it did to train. and i ended up next to this guy from Hong Kong that i talked to for about an hour driving from central to Kogarah and i still don't know exactly what he believes. he said he was going to the Buddhist temple to worship but then he tells me that he believes in Jesus Christ... and Muhammad... and Confucius.... so i was trying to figure that out and all of a sudden he's trying to use the bible to prove reincarnation! hahaha i was so confused. Also he told me that he has a book of Mormon at home that he uses as a reference... not sure how that works, but he was a really nice guy and i gave him a pass-along card with our church's address on it so he can come if he ever wants to. haha some experiences only happen to missionaries!

Jack is still doing great. we taught him the law of chastity this week and committed him to live it. we're hoping to set a date with him this next week. right now he is down in Canberra with all the YSA in the branch. and later he will be going to Melbourne to watch his friend get baptized down there! haha turns out his friend met the missionaries down there and is getting baptized. pretty sweet. Jack is so fun to teach because he is very humble and sincerely wants to follow God in his life. His prayers are so awesome. He is the epitome of a sincere heart and real intent. i love jack. he's the man.

Joy has still been out of town and preparing for winter semester. we're hoping to meet up this week, but she might be busy again so i'll let you know!

Shirley texted us last week and told us that she's been really busy with finals coming up so she wasn't able to answer our texts or calls. and then she got really sick last week. so hopefully we'll be able to meet up with her this week.

Charles Kong gets back from melbourne today so hopefully we can set something up for later this week. 

We picked up a former investigator named mr. chen. haha i met with him once with elder ward my first week and then he never got back to us and then elder liao called him last week and he told us he needed help translating at the RTA (DMV of australia) so we went and helped him out and it was really quick so we asked if we could walk to the library and share a message and he said yes so we walked and talked and he told us that the reason he didn't get back to us is because it was too hard to communicate... dangit.... haha but that's alright. he DID tell me that my chinese has improved a lot since last time we met. so that made me happy. but we'll be meeting up with him from now on and he will be coming to english class as well. i don't know if i've told yous, but we started teaching english on friday nights. we're starting slow, but hopefully picking up the pace soon and we'll be able to use it as a finding tool.

Other than that things are pretty much the same as always. a lot of finding, a good amount of teaching. i'd rather do more teaching and less finding, but that's alright. Tomorrow is the last day of June so our mission's book of mormon challenge is going to finish. i've read the whole thing in chinese and it's been a huge blessing. i love reading the scriptures and especially the book of mormon. 

This week we will be doing the mini mission so we're getting one of the priests in mortdale stake that will be coming to work with us from thursday to sunday. haha so we're trying to set as many appointments for those few days as possible. it should be good. 

Love you all! have a great week! church is true. 

love,

Elder Tingey

Playing Footy on PDay

Week 98 T-7

Finals are almost over!!!! woohooooo!!! haha and now starts the winter holiday so it should be easy to get people to meet with us if they are staying in town for the next couple months. We tried our hardest to smash out the finding last week and we ended up with 2 new investigators! it was interesting though, because we picked them up yesterday and other than that we got pretty dismal numbers. the whole week we were finding like all day every day and nothing was coming of it and i was pretty discouraged all week until saturday when one of our potentials called us and wanted to meet up the next day! but i'll tell you about that later.

Jack is doing well. taught him the word of wisdom yesterday and he committed to live it. it's nice to have elder liao with me because we can teach in a lot more detail now. haha and by we i mean him. haha i've been trying to push myself with my chinese a little bit recently so if there's something i want to say i just go for it and sometimes it gets me into trouble because i get about halfway into what i want to say and then i realize my vocabulary isnt big enough to finish so i do my best and then the person i'm talking to just kindof stares at me. like jack yesterday thought i told him that we can drink alchohol 1 time but that's it or else we will get addicted when really i was trying to talk about how there are some people who would get addicted after one drink so we all stay away from it to protect everyone. hahaha it was a bit confusing but the member that was fellowshipping knew what i meant and explained it better and then shared a cool experience about what i had said so it worked out okay... hahah dangit. but jack's last test is on the 26th of june so that will be good for him to get that over with. Also apparently he is going down to melbourne with all our YSA next week so that will be fun! haha am i a bit jealous? well, i would never say it, but yes. hahah Jack is the man.

Joy is also in melbourne right now. she went there for a few days after her test finished. So there's not much to tell but she is still awesome!

So as for the new people, we had called a bunch of potentials last week and this one named michael told us to call him after finals and his finals finished on thursday so we called him on friday and it went straight to voicemail so we were a bit disappointed because usually that means that they blocked our phone number but on saturday he called us back! so we set up an appointment with him for sunday afternoon and we went to meet him up at redfern and he brought his girlfriend! His name is michael and her name is Jing. they both wanted to learn about jesus so we taught them the restoration and spent a large portion of time talking about christ's earthly ministry and atonement. haha they would stop every few minutes and ask if i could undertsand and then tell me how strange it was that i could speak chinese. haha that never gets old. but we gave them a book of mormon and they committed to read and pray and to come to church with us. i'm excited. our branch is pretty much all people whose children have already grown up and moved out, young couples that are just starting to have kids, or else YSA. but if we can get the young couples to stick around for about 10-15 years there will be a pretty sweet youth program.

Gotta love it out here. We were talking to some members that had us over about going home (that seems to be all people want to talk to me about recently) and i'm still not sure how i feel about it. i'm just continuing with my plan of not thinking about it until the last possible moment.

The church is true! i know it is. i'm loving representing our saviour out here! its a struggle, and there's always something to overcome and something else to face but it's a joy. if you choose to be sad through it, you'll be sad, but if you choose to be happy through it, you'll enjoy life a lot more. i know that's true. Love you all! have a great week! happy fathers' day! i totally forgot it was fathers' day because they celebrate it at a different time here but every day is fathers' day, right? love you dad :)

 

love,

Elder Tingey

me and Liao steamed up some zhongzi to celebrate! one of the members gave them to us at church. i love chinese festivals.  This Aloe drink is literally the best thing in this world. if we had enough money i would probably drink it all day every day. and the chinese say it's good for your skin!
zhongzi is a rice dumpling with either meat or red bean inside. it was pretty delicious. Apparently, and this was explained to me in chinese so i'm not exactly sure but, there was an emporer, or a leader of some sort who never listened to his advisors and he went to war and lost terribly and he felt so bad about it he threw himself into a river and died but there were lots of people that really loved him so they would get in boats and row out on the river and throw in rice dumplings so the fish would eat the dumplings and not his body. so that is how it started and now it has evolved into everyone making the dumplings just for us to eat and they have dragon boat races to see who can row the fastest. so there you have it. and that could be totally wrong, but that's what i understand it to be.

Week 97 T-8

Hello again everyone! once again it is p-day and it is tuesday. this is the third week in a row that we have had to do p day on a tuesday and i'm glad its the last one for a while. Sunday night is meant to be p-day eve and when it's not it throws me off. But today our zone went to the temple so i guess it's a good reason to delay pday. (the temple isn't open on mondays) and then we spent the rest of the day checking out the shops in parramatta and then got something to eat and now we are finally back but we're emailing at Kogarah library this week instead of bankstown library and the computers here are not as good so i can't send pictures this week. sorry...

The past week was a bit rough as far as the work goes. and this next week isn't looking too promising. Finals are this week and when finals come, our university students disappear. haha we have like 5 potentials lined up to meet with us after the 26th. so we're just waiting it out and taking advantage of our spare time to do as much finding as we can. hopefully as soon as finals are over our teaching pool will explode! haha that would be ideal.

Joy is doing really well. she wasnt feeling ready for the 21st so we decided to take her off date. she is still reading the book of mormon and praying so we're very hopeful that she will receive an answer. somehow the gospel has to move from our heads to our hearts and i think that can only be done by the spirit. so we will keep helping her do what God has told us will lead to conversion. She is awesome and she is also very stressed for her final exams this week. So we're hoping all goes well for her. 

We met with Jack after church on sunday. he wants to be baptized! it was an awesome lesson about the gospel of jesus christ and how it applies to the atonement. The spirit was really strong and i could tell that Jack is sincerely and humbly seeking the truth. He's awesome. haha and he is ALSO very stressed for finals so we agreed to set a date when finals are over. i'm hoping to still be here for it. He's such a good guy. he's one of those people that just puts off the "good person" vibe. 

We weren't able to meet with shirley this past week. she didn't answer our calls or text us back so we're a bit sad about that. hopefully her phone is broken or something. ya, that's gotta be it....hahaha i'm getting better at consoling rejection. there's some missionaries that really struggle with it and so i'm trying to get my pat on the back down just right. not too hard, not too soft. just right. and tell them that "her phone is probably broken". hahahahahaha 

We met up with a new investigator this past week named Charles. it was our first lesson with him and he was asking us how to join our church! haha so that was pretty awesome. he doesn't speak much english and i had no idea until after the lesson when i asked how his english is and he said he can't speak at all. But it was pretty awesome because i understood the whole lesson and was able to go back and forth pretty well with elder Liao instead of him teaching the majority and me trying to understand and then testifying at the end. I'm really happy with where my chinese is. i look at where it was when i came here and i've learned soooo much! and i constantly get reminded of how much farther i have to go to be fluent, but every once in a while its nice to give myself some props. But anyways, charles returns to china at the end of July so we might be rushing to get him in the water before then. and we'll set him up with the church in the DaLu! and the good news is he is NOT a student!!!! hahaha so we can meet with him this week.

Funny things that happened this week:

i found myself on the train one day translating for this crazy lady that was trying to preach to these three chinese ladies who spoke no english. Not sure how it happened, but it was pretty funny. and i was trying to make the things she was saying sound a bit less... weird. because she was wanting me to tell them that the handle they were holding onto on the train was actually jesus because he holds us up and i just said that jesus helps us face our challenges... hahaha it was pretty crackup.

i contacted this guy at the train station and literally 5 seconds after i shook his hand goodbye i found myself holding a strange pamphlet and getting bible bashed by some guy. i was so confused at how fast it happened. i changed from the missionary to the investigator in the blink of an eye! hahahaha i think my tactics are better than his though.... Go mormons.

Life is going well! every few minutes i alternate between wanting time to go faster and wanting time to slow down. I miss you guys with all my heart, but it is depressing for me to think about leaving all my aussie friends behind. SO pretty much what i'm saying is get ready for me to be depressed when i come home. hahaha BUT i can't wait to go to lake powell!!!! so that should pick me up :) love you all SOOOOOOO much!  have an awesome week! 

love,

Elder Tingey

Happy birthday we sing to you! may your dreams and wishes come true! may your hours be filled with happinesssssssss and alllll your daysssss with looooove be blessssed! 

Happy birthday Dad! 

祝你生日快乐！

 love you!!!

Week 96 T-9

Hello everyone! hope yous all had a great week. Mine was awesome. Elder Liao is the man. we were smashing it out with finding this week and got a couple new potentials so we're hoping to see some good stuff in the near future. I realized this week that having a native companion is awesome because i feel like my chinese is improving very quickly, but lessons are a bit more difficult for me because they get talking and they start slow for me and then without thinking they get faster and faster until i'm struggling just to know what principle in the lesson we're talking about! haha its fun, though. Yesterday we didnt have P-day because it was a public holiday. The queens birthday. Not sure if it was her ACTUAL birthday, or the fake one, not sure how many birthdays a person can have... wish I was royalty... haha but regardless, we had a holiday and our mission doesn't take p-days on public holidays. so we were out contacting people pretty much all day because no one wanted to meet with us since it was their day off. all goods, though. we got a couple people's contact details so it was a success! 

Joy is doing good. she came to church and told us that she's been praying regularly and i think she enjoyed church. We had a really good fast and testimony meeting. usually i wonder what's going to happen in testimony meeting, but everyone that bore their testimony said some really good stuff. and there was nothing weird that was said! haha actually, this branch is really good with that stuff. it makes it nice to bring investigators.

We had a great lesson with shirley on saturday where we talked about the restoration. and we had a great member there to bear testimony and share her experiences and it was awesome. I think she ran into some anti material because she was asking questions about polygamy and stuff. but it was a really good lesson. and all in chinese so it was even better:) there was a point where we were talking about baptism and we were explaining how it works and she was having trouble understanding what elder Liao was explaining and she got this puzzled look on her face and said "pao yi pao ma?" which i had no idea what that meant but elder liao and our member both started laughing way hard. Elder liao told me later that in chinese it's what they say to describe the action of soaking your oreo in milk. hahahaha she's crack up. but she wants to learn a bit more before she commits to anything as far as baptism goes, which makes sense, but we're still praying for her. and she didn't come to church so we were a bit sad about that. this week, though.

Jack is doing great as well. He's very busy with school because finals are coming up, but he came to all three hours of church and had a lesson with us after AND he joined the ward choir! oh yeah, the branch is turning into a ward soon. at least, that's the word on the street. so that's exciting. but we talked to jack mostly about baptism and why its so important to us and why all the missionaries he's met with keep inviting him to be baptised. he gets it and he wants to be baptised, but just wants to learn a bit more. he is pretty cool, though. and so humble. haha this week i was thinking about how lucky i've been to be able to serve in so many areas with universities. i love teaching people my age. it is awesome. i feel like i'm just talking to one of my friends from back home. just in chinese... haha it's great. 

other than that things are pretty much the same. if we're not in an appointment with an investigator or recent convert/ less-active we are walking the streets or riding the train or sitting at the bus stop to try to find people. It's the life. 

One experience stood out to me this week i want to share. Elder Liao and i were walking through hurstville and this kid who was sitting with these two girls waved us over so we walked over and i was mentally preparing myself to get bible bashed. But he asked us to sit down next to him and he proceeded to tell us about the tough life he's lived. he can't be more than a year older than me and he's had a rough go of things. and the experiences he's had in life have convinced him that there is no God. So i was able to testify of the reality of a loving God that allows bad things to happen because he gave each of us agency and he wants us to use it. And i felt the spirit testify to me that what i said was true. but he said something that caused me to think a little bit. he told me that his goal in life is "to be able to walk into one of these shops and buy anything, EVERYTHING, and then walk to the next one and do the same thing. and then walk up the street to the car dealer and buy any car i want, and then drive to the Ferrari dealer and get the most expensive one and then drive that ferrari down the main street of hurstville and crash it on purpose and then walk to the Lamborghini dealer and buy one of those and still have money left over to go have a beer." So i thought about that and why that isn't my goal in life and i decided that that is a goal that will never bring satisfaction. No matter what we do, we will always be able to make one more dollar. and as soon as you buy that last Lambo, they will come out with a new model and you won't be happy until you have THAT one. and it never ends. What i believe is that the gospel gives us an attainable goal that brings us infinite happiness. And we are very lucky to understand that.  

Love you all! Have a great week. Happy birthday Grandpa! Cant wait to talk to him about his australia mission stories. Talk to yous next week!

-Elder Tingey

FHE with the Branch

Elder Liao took me to a taiwanese dessert place. have you had this before, dad? mango ice.

Week 95 T-10

Alright we have started my last full Transfer and i am still kickin in the cantonese branch! haha no real surprise there. since elder bowcut was going home it made sense to keep me here. i wasn't sure who my comp would be though and president wouldn't tell me until monday morning who it is! haha it was pretty funny because we had to go to the mission home early to drop off elder Bowcuts luggage and we got there and president was sitting on the couch on his ipad doing something for the mission and we weigh the luggage and he asks, " have you guys eaten?" and we hadn't so he asked if we wanted some toast and we said yes, and then next thing we know we are sitting at the counter on stools while president back cooks us bacon, eggs, hash browns, and toast! hahaha it was great. i felt like i was back home with dad cooking breakfast on a saturday morning again! haha i love president back. But i got him to tell me while we were eating that my new companion is Elder Liao! and as far as i know, we will be dying together because we both go home August 11th. Elder Ward got transferred as well and he was replaced by elder Barlow. Its weird how fast things change on the mission. It's a whole different flat and only half of it has changed! I'm really excited, though, for this next transfer. It will be lots of fun.

Joy is doing very good. in her words, Joy is a joy. We met with her on thursday again and she brought her friend with her! so we talked for a bit and introduced who we are and what we do and what our over-arching beliefs are. not sure how keen she is, but she's really nice. her name is Allison. 

We had a really good lesson with Jack on sunday after church. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the 10 commandments. He is smashing through the book of mormon. he's in 2 nephi now and has heaps of questions. the whole lesson was in chinese and i had a massive headache by the end of it. But it was a great lesson and the spirit was strong. we hope to have him working towards a date for baptism soon. He's such a cool guy. 

Shirley wasn't able to come to church because she got sick and she's been so busy with school that we haven't been able to meet with her. but hopefully this week we will. 

On sunday we had FHE at a member's house and there was a great turnout. there almost wasn't enough room to fit everyone! so we might be moving it to the chapel in the future. Also we will probably be starting an english class taught by Elder and Sister Kinghorn, the senior couple in our branch. that should be a good way to find some people to teach. 

Sad to hear about Elder Perry passing away. he was a great apostle. i've loved studying some of his talks. not sure who the next one will be, but im excited to know. 

Life is pretty sweet right now. it was good to see everyone yesterday at transfers. half of our mission goes home between now and october. pretty crazy. Well, have a great week! Church is true. i'll send some pics.

love,

Elder Tingey

Me and Elder Bowcut

Me and Liao

Week 93

okay once again we are going to make this one quick. its the last p-day of the transfer and elder bowcut doesn't want to squander it.

We met with joy and went over the baptismal interview questions with her. she doesn't feel quite ready to be baptized so we have pushed her date back to the 21st of June. kindof sad, but it will be good. She's still awesome. Please keep her in your prayers. 

Shirley is also doing good. she wasn't able to come to church or meet with us last week, but she will finish her assignment by tomorrow and then we can meet up with her. haha she refuses to text us in english so we have to spend ages interpreting the texts she sends us, which is a bit difficult when she asks us things like, "have you ever eaten pig cartilage boiled in brown sugar sauce?" haha that was a tough one. but we got it. and she was all the more impressed by our Chinese:) 

This week they started doing this thing called VIVID in sydney which is where they have all these light shows and stuff and we were riding the train across the harbour bridge on saturday evening and we got to see it! it was pretty cool. the opera house was all lit up and the lights were flashing different colors and stuff. lots of fun. 

Probably the coolest thing was that elder Cook came to our stake conference on sunday! We found out why he is in australia too. he came to give some speeches at unis and also to give tony abbot his family history. but before the meeting we pulled up and were walking in the back door when me and bowcut got caught up in the security and ended up shaking elder cooks hand! hahahaha it was so funny. we were just walking in and then all of a sudden we were pretty much one on one with elder cook. pretty exciting. 

and then after stake conference one of the recent converts in the ward brought her friend to church and told us that he's been being taught by the north missionaries, but he wants to come to our branch now so we will be teaching from this point on. haha great stuff. his name is jack. 

okay gotta go! love you all! if you have questions then email them to me and i will try to answer them next week! BYE!

love,

Elder Tingey 

Week 92

Hello all! So my comp has decided that since he is going home in two weeks there is no point in emailing a ton so we will be cutting it short for a few weeks here so i'll just be giving yous the short version... haha and i'll see how i like it and maybe it will be how i do the rest of my emails:)

Joy is doing awesome! She took us around to some of the chinese shops today since Elder Bowcut is going home and doesn't have much time left to get souvenirs. haha it was really fun. She came to church on sunday. last week we taught her the 10 commandments and the Law of chastity and sunday after church we taught her the word of wisdom and law of tithing. She says the only thing that will be tough for her is drinking tea. apparently tea is like really popular in china or something..... hahaha since EVERYONE drinks it. including me...JOKES! i only dring the honey-lemon tea which is totally kosher. haha We are still hoping for Joy to get baptised on the 31st of May so we are excited for that and trying to get all the lessons in and give her time to feel comfortable about it. She really is awesome.

Nicole kindof dropped us last week. She's still okay to meet up, but she said she has pretty much made her decision about or church. There's a chance we might do a church swap with her and go to her church so she comes to ours, but that's probably not going to happen, unless we just go anyways because there's a mandarin version that meets at the same time next door apparently... hahah jk that's for after the mission.

Mr. Xu is now in Canberra for work for the next couple weeks so nothing to report on him. hopefully he gets back soon. he's like the only person we visit that we Cant speak english to so it helps my chinese out a lot. plus i miss him. he's so cool.

One of the members brought their friend to church last week and we met up with her on saturday. Her name is shirly and she's really funny. She can't believe how we can survive without electronics and entertainment for two years... haha but we played our cards right and didn't speak any english to her at the beginning so she only speaks chinese to us now so the hard part is just never showing any sign of weakness in our chinese so she doesn't revert to english on us. haha its great. and she has some friends that go to snow college in utah! hahahahaha i was crackin up when she told us. haha good stuff. apparently it's a good school!

Other than that life is pretty normal. haha well, as normal as life can get as amissionary. Sometimes i stop and think about how weird my life actually is right now and i'm so used to it that i don't even notice sometimes. hahah its the best. Love you all! have a great week! bai bai!

-Elder Tian