July 31, 2016

This was a great week. 

Yesterday church was great. We had 5 investigators come to church, including WuMin and her 2 daughters. We went down to the primary to help her two daughters understand what was going on. WuMin invited us to come over after church, so we went to her house and played with the kids, and then she made us some really nice noodles and fish. The kids also had a friend over. Even though the two daughters do not speak much English, they still had a lot of fun with their indian friend. Then we had a lesson with them. We taught the plan of salvation, and they were really receiving. The older Daughter, Jia Rui, agreed to be baptized on the 13th of next month.

 They are our most progressing investigators right now. We are also hoping the mom will get baptized, but she thinks that might disrespect the priest that baptized her in China. But she is understanding more and more. I am on my last month now. It would be really cool to baptize a family! Anyway, thank you for your prayers. Got to go now. My companion has to take an English test. 

Elder Jordan Andersen

楊長老

76 Cathies Lane

Wantirna South VIC 3152

Australia

July 24, 2016:

Hello Everyone!

Box Hill

Even though things have generally been picking up because I am nearing the end of my mission, this week was a little bit slow. Many of our investigators were not able to meet for some reason or another. But we did have a few people come to church. Wumin and her daughters came to church. They do not understand any English, so we tried to get the daughters to talk to other Chinese kids. Wumin joined our Gospel Principles class. We have not taught her about commandments yet, but somehow we started to have a conversation about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. She sounded a little hesitant at first, but as the conversation progressed, she started to support what we were saying, and told us how some old people she knew had a physical addiction to tea. We were pretty surprised at that, because normally people who reject these things do not change their own mind that fast. let alone start bearing testimony for us.

This p-day we are in the city to visit some sites and some museums. stay tuned for some pictures next week. 

The last 4 p-days I have are pretty much booked now. 2 of them will be doing fun things, and the other two will probably be spent packing and preparing.  President has been helping me out; letting me go to the city a couple of times before I leave. I am really thankful for that. 

People playing Pokemon Go.  We try to contact them.

I love my mission. Never again will I have the chance to help people 24/7, through teaching them about the gospel. I am making the most of my remaining time. At the same time, I am excited to see my family and friends back home. I wonder how many notifications my Facebook will have when I open it up for the first time in 2 years. What? haha. 

Doing service

Elder Jordan Andersen
楊長老

76 Cathies Lane
Wantirna South VIC 3152
Australia

July 10: Another Baptism

The past two weeks have been very eventful.

We got transfer news, and I will "die" in my current area, Box Hill.  My companion will also stay.  I am happy about that, but I hope president lets me visit some people in the city.

Our new mission president is great!  Elder Vidmar is the man.  Before he came, President Maxwell showed us some videos of him in the Olympics.  He competed in gymnastics, and one of his routines got a ten out of ten which is very rare.  I am sure that the video can be found on the internet.

We had a meeting when the new president came, and he talked about his mission, and his life, and his testimony.  He also talked about obedience.  He had some colorful socks, adn said that he wanted to be the cool mission president and wear those socks, but then had ha us read the white hand book which says socks must be a solid color.

We had zone meeting a couple of days ago, and he also popped in.  He was wearing a sock tie and a slim suit.  He just came in to say hi.  My companion and I did a training at that meeting.  We had people line up in two lines, and then the people would come up and do role play.  The fake investigator started out as a 1 out of 10  on the interest scale, and slowly moved up to a 10.  We tried to teach that by small and simple things, people's interests can be changed, and sometimes that is all we can do.  Teach them little by little.

Yutting got baptized!  Her baptism went very well.  A few missionaries came from the city who had taught her before; Elder Padillia, Jiang, and Yang.  Elder Padillia and I gave talks.  Elder Padillia's talk was very good.  He talked about how they had to teach them using object lessons, and one of these lessons  was with a Rubik's cube.  The two kids love the Rubik's cube, and you use algorithms to solve them.  Basically the algorithms are like the commandments and the gospel.  My talk was about repentance and forgiveness.  I shared this story:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/remembering-in-whom-we-have-trusted?lang=eng&_r=1

This Sunday there was no one to translate for sacrament meeting so I had to translate, which sucked.  The worst was when one of the speakers told a story about astronauts and space ships, and I did not know how to say either of those words.  But I think I got at least half of the sacrament meeting across.  Haha.

This is going to be a good last transfer.  There are a lot of people who have a lot of potential to be baptized.  I really love this area and the members are helpful.  I am so thankful for all of this.  I will also try to use the last few p-days I have to go places I have not had a chance to go yet.

The twins at game night.

Elder Jordan Andersen
楊長老

76 Cathies Lane
Wantirna South VIC 3152
Australia

June 19, 2016: My Birthday Week!

This was a super fast week.  Elder Dang and I both had a birthday.  Our birthdays are a day apart.  I cannot believe I am 20 already.  On my birthday we went to the Wang's family house to teach them and we had a good time.  

Game night was pretty lame when we came here, but we invited a lot of people, and members brought their friends and last week we had a great activity.  A lot of xiao pengyou.  

Overall a great week.  A lot of people have been inviting us out to eat recently, and we have been very busy with our investigators, and trying to coordinate the activities, and lessons, but I like it better when we are busy and have a lot of things to do.  

Thanks for your birthday wishes.  If you forgot, I cannot blame you because I forgot it was my birthday until a couple days before.  

Elder Jordan Andersen
楊長老

76 Cathies Lane
Wantirna South VIC 3152
Australia

June 13, 2016

Hello everyone!

This was a great week.  At church I taught a lesson on priesthood organizations in Chinese.  I still do not remember some of the names of the priesthood organizations in Chinese, but the Chinese people sometimes say them in English anyway.  So, my Chinese is still not too good.

On Monday we had a big meeting with a few of the church leaders in the primary, general relief society as well as our area seventy and his wife. It was very enlightening.  It made the rest of our p-day better.  The speakers shared a lot of their experiences of their mission with us, and talked about our purpose as missionaries.  When I was in Tasmania, I started studying the purpose of missionaries a lot.  It has changed my attitude on my mission a lot.

We often recite the purpose which is: Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus 
Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.

My birthday is in a couple of days and I almost forgot my own birthday so I do not blame others for forgetting.  Happy Birthday Jacob, Kaitlyn, Grandpa and soon Aunt Verna.

Elder Jordan Andersen
楊長老
76 Cathies Lane
Wantirna South VIC 3152
Australia

June 5, 2016

This week is great, but I do not have much time to write.  

We had transfers.  I will stay here and then I am back with Elder Dang again.  We have had not much time to do finding this week because we have been preparing our old flat to sell and cleaning out our new flat.  I have also been dealing with some things for BYU.  We also went to the city for a baptism. 

We did a tree planting service project a few days ago.  It rained and we thought no one was going to come, but then a bunch of people from our church came.  I also went to this service project last year.  The trees that we planted last year had grown quite a bit.

Church was pretty good.  There was a very old Chinese lady that bore her testimony.  Her testimony was super powerful.  I am out of time now.  Until next week.  

May 29, 2016: Time is flying by quickly.

Hello Everyone!

This week is the last week of the transfer.  My companion Elder Jiang will be moving to the city.  I will serve with Elder Dang.  I have served with him before in the city.  He was a good companion, and has a lot of potential.

I know my return date now.  I will return in about three months and start school immediately.  I can't believe time has flown by this quickly.  I still have a lot of time left though and there is still so much to do in this area.

We are not able to meet with a ton of people this week because there are exams at the local university.  Everyone has to study.

There is a recent convert here named Sam.  He has twin sisters who also recently joined the church.  They are really awesome members and you can tell how their progression has helped them and their family.  Sam blesses the sacrament almost every week.  On Sunday he bore his testimony and it was such a great testimony.  During the second, another awesome member named Phoebe taught a lesson on the atonement.  She had us read this talk which is one of my favorite talks.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/the-mediator?lang=eng&country=au

The atonement is real.  It is the only way to repent of our sins.  Many really do not use it enough, but it is really the foundation of our religion.

We will be moving into another apartment and the apartment we are moving into is super nice.

Until next week.

Elder Jordan Andersen
楊長老

76 Cathies Lane
Wantirna South VIC 3152
Australia