Hey everyone! So guess what we did more of this week! Yep, moving! First, a bunch of us Elders got together and helped some sisters move to a new flat. Then that afternoon we got a text from a member, asking if we could help him move a less active family the next day, so of course we accepted and took the challenge! It was quite a fun but hectic and exhausting move, that included tossing things over a balcony (like a massive couch), "disassembling" beds (accidentally breaking a few parts), and playing with the cutest puppy we've ever seen. And that night, I got the best rest I've had in ages.

We also got to have dinner with a less active member and his nonmember friend, and got to see some of their talents! He has a natural piano gift and can sight-read music really well, and was even able to recall just about any church song even though he had been less active for ages. The nonmember friend had some amazing pictures that he took on his travels, like pictures of New Zealand and some third world country citizens. So now I feel inspired to go home and learn some instruments and go travelling, although it's much easier said than done.

Also, just thought I'd mention that after a dinner with a member fell through, my companion and I decided to treat ourselves to some Vietnamese food. I have no idea what the food we ate was called since the spelling of the names of the food was quite odd, but it was some sort of noodle soup with meat and vegetables in it, and it was pretty good. Just trying to make my father a little jealous since he keeps sending pictures of all the sushi and Hawaiian food he's eating at the moment. Probably wont work though.

And the title! Trying to keep it on the down low, and being really careful, because one of the sister missionaries is emailing near me, but last pday we got to go to a place called bounce with the Zone Leaders, and it was kinda an Elders Only thing, and the sisters probably wouldn't be very happy if they found out. But it was pretty fun! It's a big warehouse kinda building turned into a trampoline park, if that makes sense. Lots of trampolines, dodgeball, obstacle courses, etc.

And lastly, my little spiritual thought is to set goals! Setting goals is how we achieve purpose in life, and it helps us to push ourselves! My companion and I were striving to talk to 100 people this week, which was getting pretty tough since we lost a lot of our proselyting time. This past Sunday, we were 4 people away from hitting our goal, and we had two choices. We could go home since it was almost 8:30, or we could keep walking around the streets to look for a few people to talk to, even though we couldn't see anyone. We decided to continue to push ourselves, and after not finding anyone in that area, decided to hop in the car and drive around. Finally, we found 3 people talking on the side of the street, so we pulled off into a side road, got out of the car, and casually walked around the corner pretending we didn't know they wer ethere. Although they weren't of the Christian faith, we had a good chat with them and ended up talking to 102 people for the week! So yeah, that's just the little message for today, set goals and strive to hit them!

Thanks everyone for your love and support!

-Elder Ho

Australia's Got Talent

It's only been a few days, so another short email! Basically, we did more moving and helped a member move pretty much all Friday afternoon and then Saturday morning. We've also been spending a lot of time trying to recover from being sick (both my companion and I) so that's been fun but time consuming. And lastly, we had a ward talent night! It was a pretty good success, there were many investigators, nonmembers, and less active members that came to the talent night!

Other than that, there's not much else to report on, so I hope you all have a good week!

Thanks for your love and support,

Elder Ho

Moving!

Sorry it's been a while since the last email, when we go to the temple during the week they move our pday to the temple day, which was thursday for this week, so sometimes my emails are delayed by a few days. 

But anyways, last pday we went to this memorial garden/crematorium place and had a look around, and it was pretty nice and quiet. I was reading a lot of the little grave-stone sign things, and I realized that a lot of them said some sad things, like, "still missing you" and stuff like that. I realized that for mine, when I die, which is inevitable since it happens to all of us, if any of you reading this are still alive at that time, can you please put something on my grave that's along the lines of "cya suckers" or some other uplifting words? I'll brainstorm some in the meantime, but when people see my grave I'd rather them not feel sad and depressed. But that pday really gave me a greater appreciation for the knowledge of the plan of salvation, and knowing that this isn't the end, and that death is only a stepping stone into the next life.

Well, enough talk about death and stuff, some other interesting stuff that happened this past week... oh we got invited by our investigator to his church activity! We got to make pizza and enjoy the night, and even casually slip in a few things about us as missionaries and what we do as we were talking to people! But it was fun and interested at the same time, being invited to another church's activity.

We also had to pick up some other Elder's that are staying in the city, Elder Soyson and Elder Saiyavong, and they made some pretty good fried rice for us, Thailand style. Just thought I'd rub that in for all of you that are feeling hungry at the moment.

And no, I'm not moving at the moment, the title of this email is talking about the moving that everyone else around has been doing! Unfortutely, all in about one week, we found out an investigator that we had been teaching has moved, another one will be moving in a week, and another one will be moving back to New Zealand in about 2 weeks! So it's back to hitting those doors and trying to find some new investigators!

Along the lines of moving, we also helped a less active family move this past week! We spent a few hours on friday and saturday lifting furniture and loading furniture around a house and into a truck, and at the end of it all we were ablet o have a good talk with the mom, who has been less active for many years (even removing her records from the ward list) and she even committed to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon that we left her! The miracles of service!

And for my spiritual message, I'm going to be stealing it from someone else (all credit to Elder Hymas and his training this past tuesday). But my zone leader told us that there are three types of people (this probably isn't word for word). The first person is someone that makes things happen. The second is someone that watches things happen. And the third is someone who wonders what happened. Our goal, not just in the mission but in life, should be to be person number 1! Making things happen! And that has been on my mind for many days now and has helped me to re-evaluate the things I'm doing and set new goals for myself, I hope you can all apply it too!

But anyways, hope you all have a good week! 

Elder Ho