Would Yous like a Drank?

The spirit of last week definitely carried over into this one.  Two great weeks in a row.  I'll start with the statistics which you might find quite humorous.   2 glasses of water, 1 bottle of water, 1 can of Solo (Australian lemonade tasting soda), 1 can of Kirk's Lemonade, a glass of ginger beer, and a tiny bottle of Coke Zero that I forgot to take a picture of this morning.  So I'll email that next week.  The weather has been providing some good opportunities for missionaries.  And our straw hats help even more.

We have been really trying to build the teaching pool (as they call it) because at the moment, it's more like a small puddle. The Area Book got us moving a bit and this week we were actually looking for a former investigator and met Daniel instead.  We taught a bit of the Restoration at his door, how our message can help his life, and set up a return appointment for this week.  Which is pretty big.  Because we haven't picked up anyone new since the first week of last transfer.  Good stuff. 

Trade-offs with the Zone Leaders were pretty sweet.  I got to work with Elder Lamb and Elder Heu went with Elder Sloan, so it was the Americans and the Kiwis.  Elder Lamb came in a transfer before me and we both served in the Harbour North Zone at the same time, so it's been pretty fun to be in the same District as him.

We mainly worked on finding during our trade-off and has some pretty cool opportunities street contacting and finding in the train stations.  Street contacting is probably my least confident aspect of missionary work, so it was really good to boost my confidence.  Elder Heu got to do a lot as well, so hopefully we can continue to build off of that and hit up Gosford more often. 

As we were wrapping up our companionship study yesterday, we heard a knock at the door and it's this Muslim guy doing some survey.  Now I'm not too sure what led us to do this, but he noticed our badges (at first he though we were Jehovah's Witnesses) and wanted to know more about the Mormons.  So we took three chairs outside, took his survey and taught him the Restoration along with some other Gospel principles.  He told us that he agreed with everything that we said, but the one thing Muslim's believe is that Christ wasn't actually crucified, he was just taken up to heaven.  So that was interesting.  Learned something new this week.

I've really been enjoying church the past couple of weeks.  The lessons we've had have been hitting home and I've taken something away each time.  Sister Coulson (the one who gave us the ham) is teaching our Gospel Principles class and she does a really good job.  Most of the members in there are semi-recent converts or returning less-actives and she definitely caters to their needs.  The lesson yesterday was on families and how they can be eternal.  She shared different ways we can strengthen the family and how raising children in the Gospel is the way to go.  I've said it before and I say it again: how grateful I am to have been raised in the Gospel, especially in such a strong ward and stake.  The blessings and effects of it are unreal.

Yup, this is getting pretty long, so I'll try to make this as short as possible.  The Elder's Quorum lesson yesterday was about the Restoration and we had a real good discussion about it.  One of the doctrines cleared up instantly through the First Vision was the true nature of God.  We teach the Godhead to Primary children, but yet much of the world dwindles in confusion about this topic.  Elder Lamb and I visited a former investigator who is a very devout Catholic and she was a very nice lady.  We didn't want to bash at all, but he simply asked a question about as the Savior is performing the Atonement, who is He praying to?  As you know, there are many other examples you could frame this question with.  Anyway, the lady spent a good 20 minutes looking through books and trying to answer the question.  She came to the conclusion that the trinity is unfathomable and that one can't truly understand it in this life.  Now this was quite a funny experience for me, but I truly did feel bad for her.  Despite her incredibly strong faith, she was literally confused at the topic and might never come to understand the truth of it.

So we have interviews with President and Sister Checketts this week and those are always fun because we get to bring questions we have for President to answer.  We also placed a Book of Mormon each of the three weeks so far this transfer.  So it's become a goal of sorts to keep that going.  Please pray that we are blessed with future opportunities to do so!  We need Heaven's Help in placing these great Books.

Not the end of the world yet, but very hot nonetheless

(40 degrees C = 104 degrees F!!)

We held a trade-off challenge of who can get the most selfies with the people we meet.  Here's one of a Samoan-Kiwi family we met in the park.  Uncle has heaps of member relatives and is keen to feed.  Solid potential for the Zone Leaders (he lives in their area)

 Trade-offzzz