Sally Got Baptized!

Sally got baptized! This is a miracle! 

Sorry but I do not have much time to write today. A lot happened. We had the zone conference, and the president came here from the mainland and we had some great trainings. After that meeting we filmed a Christmas video. The subject we were given was "baptism" and "Lilo and Stitch" The video will be shown at the Christmas party at the mission office. I will be at the other Christmas party in Tasmania because I did not get transferred. Elder Xiao will get on a flight later today though because he got transferred :( .

Sally's baptism went well. It was held after church so there was a good turnout. One of our recent converts, Jamie gave a talk. Her English is still a work in progress, so she wrote the talk in Chinese and we helped her translate it. It was simple, but good! Then I baptized Sally. The baptism was clean the first attempt. I said the words correctly. 

​Sally is super good. She has been an investigator for a long time. She is one of those people who finds it hard to make decisions, but she made the right decision this time. I am sure that she will become a great member. 

Well we have to go now because Jamie will treat us to lunch then we have to go to the airport. That is basically our plan for today. Oh yea, and thanksgiving happened, but in Australia it is not that big of a holiday, so nothing really happened. 

Until next week. 

UGH! Or is it UGG?

Only one more week before transfers and Elder Xiao and I are both hoping that we do not get transferred, but he might get transferred since he has been here longer than me.  

Lately we have been trying to think of more object lessons we can use. So we thought of this one using a tissue box. We put some trash in the tissue box, and some candy, and one missionary tells the participant that the box has good things in it and the other tells the investigator that it just has trash in it, then they have to feel around for the candy. It is a good way to teach how action must be used to build faith. 

We met with Sally this week. Even though she failed her baptismal interview again, she is still keen. During the interview, they were rushed a little, so she just kept saying “yes” to all the questions, so we think that may be why they failed her. But that is just a guess. That is another reason that we do not want to get transferred. We really want to witness her baptism since she has been trying for so long.  

Though Hobart is a big city, the University of Tasmania is not that big. We invited an investigator to play Majiang. He wanted to invite his friend. The friend he invited was also an investigator, and we did not know that they knew each other. When we called him to tell him that we were leaving soon, he was hanging out at the house of another one of our investigators.  Then we went to Salamanca Market with some friends.  

Fun fact: did you know that Tasmania provides 80% of the sheepskin used to make sheepskin boots? Did you know that the UGG Australia brand is an American company?  In Australia, the word “UGG” is not a specific brand but a generic term for that type of shoe. A real Ugg is a sheepskin boot that is made in Australia. 

-Until next week!

Hello,

Not that much happened this week. Our investigators that have baptismal dates keep having to postpone for one reason or another. Recently we have had generally more investigators at church which is super cool. There was a woman I found at University of Tasmania, and since she did not speak Chinese, I let the English missionaries meet with her, and she has come to church for the past 3 weeks.

The member who has 2 puppies invited us to eat at her house. They made some really good food, and we got to play with their dogs, and share a message with them.

My companion and I have recently had a cough. It is not too serious, but very annoying. 

I heard about the terrorist attacks in France. Very sad. I pray that there will be no more attacks.

A little while ago we were able to visit the botanical gardens. The botanical gardens were good, but still not as good at the ones in Encinitas, CA.

Sorry about the lack of updates and pictures lately.

Three New Visitors

This was a good week. Yesterday we had 3 new people come to church, and a member brought a new person too.

Tracy has been an investigator for a while. We are hoping she will get baptized at the end of the month.

The second person is named Edward. I found him at the University of Tasmania. Even though he is young, he is a father and he has a wife and kid back in China. We have a member take us to church since we do not have a car, and then this member was also kind enough to pick up this investigator. The whole car ride, he was talking about China. He likes the environment in Hobart a lot more than China.

The third person is Yuanbo. He is the guy who rents a room in a member’s house. He is going back to China soon, so we are just hoping that he will remember what we taught him and keep building faith.

A member who is also a student, that helps us missionaries out a lot, brought a friend to church, and we taught her some things, and hope that she can also become an investigator. Since this member is a super cool returned missionary, we know that he will influence her and tell some stories from his mission to her.

Yesterday we dropped by a member’s home and she bought a new puppy. Pics included.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Things here are pretty
normal. Still a lot of investigators. We have a good investigator. He is from
China, and is doing a “homestay” program at our ward mission leader’s home. We
went to Salamanca (a tent market) with him a couple of days ago. He is interested
but he is going back to China until next year.  

Today we will check out the botanical gardens. 

I saw the Arora a few days ago. It was very very faint
because of the clouds. I hope I can have a chance to see it more clearly before
I leave Australia.