No Sled with Reindeers, but a Harley for this Santa.

Last P-Day my companion and I went to a place called the Penitentiary Chapel. Tasmania, like Australia, used to be a penal colony. Anyway, we went because this one was in the city, and it was cheaper than the others. The tour was interesting. The 2 most memorable parts were the solitary confinement cells and the place where they hang people.  Other than that the tour was a little long and boring.

We met a super keen investigator near the beach yesterday. Her boyfriend is a missionary for our church and he told her to meet with us. So yeah. She is very keen.  This was our first time having a lesson near Sandy Bay. It is a really beautiful beach and it is super close to our house, but for some reason we never walked by it before. Then we saw Santa riding a motorcycle along the beach. 

Yesterday we had a Christmas musical fireside. We invited many investigators, and 5 new investigators came, including the girl we met at Sandy Bay. It was painful setting up rides for everyone. None of our investigators have cars because they are students, so I had to set up two cars to pick people up. And most people here only use road maps for some reasons, and the streets are so old and complicated. Aahhh. It took about an hour to set that up. It was a miracle that everyone got there and back. The activity itself was excellent. They had a few choir numbers and a few solos, and instruments, and video clips from Mormon.org. One of our new friends told us that he basically felt the spirit. And we have not even taught him about the spirit yet!

Today we will leave for the north part of Tasmania around noon. It is about a 2.5 hour drive. And there will be 5 missionaries in each Corola. The ride up there is usually not too comfortable, but I am excited for the party up there. The missionaries will have a Christmas event up there, and the President, his wife, and the assistants are flying here. Next week I will say how the party went.

Tiring and Exciting Week!

The past week has been super exciting, and tiring. We dropped off Elder Xiao and the rest of the people going to the mainland at the Hobart airport. It is a small airport, with only a few flights coming in per day. 

The next day I stayed with the English missionaries. We had a couple of lessons and did some door knocking. When we knocked the first door, the person slammed the door, but after that everyone was pretty nice. 

We came back home and inspected a flat to make sure it was suitable for the new missionaries coming in. We also looted a couple of things. I got a tie hanger and some Nike shoes. 

The next day I got my new companion. He is Elder Dang from QingHai. He has been out for about a year. So far we get along well. Elder Dang is very good at teaching and his Chinese is very easy to understand. The first couple of days I spoke 80% Chinese.

Since the students here have their holiday right now, things are a little slow, but we have still had some lessons. 

A couple of days ago we missed a bus to the city so we decided to walk. I found this trail along the coast with all of these little historical things along the way. That was a lot of fun, but it took a while. I hoped walking that trail would help Elder Dang to like this area. He loved his old area.

It seems like we visited a lot of members this week. We visited the Stewarts house yesterday, and they showed Elder Dang their Pony, and their huge yard, where they grow much of their own food. We also visited a less active and she said she would come to church for the first time in over a year. We shared about the role of Jesus Christ and it was a very spiritual lesson.

Church was great this Sunday. There was a musical number, and Sally got confirmed.