Goodbye's!

So a new transfer has started... and both my companion and I are staying! So why the title of the email? First off, we have an elder who is VISA waiting in our mission, and has been here for a while now, he's probably one of the most legendary elder's I've every met. In the 3 months he's been here, him and his companions have just "smashed" their area (in a good way). And after 3 months of him stressing and people losing the documents he needed, he's finally got everything he needs and his VISA in Japan should be here on Thursday! So we got to go into the heart of Brisbane City on Monday, and into the Japanese Embassy, to help him sort things out. It was pretty cool.

Since he's preparing to leave, last pday we went bowling, and went to a "sushi train" restaurant, where I felt like I was in heaven for a bit, feasting on fish and rice and many other asian foods... it was great. We also got to play a few games of bowling that day! This past district meeting he gave a powerful departing testimony, and now we're all kinda said that we're about to lose this elder and that we have to say our goodbyes before he flies to Japan.

And more goodbyes! A YSA in the stake used to work a lot with us (and also buy us KFC and McDonalds when we didn't have dinner), and now he's leaving on his mission (today) to New Zealand! So we went to say goodbye to him, and got to witness his family and friends perform a Haka for him, which was pretty powerful. Probably woke up the whole neighbourhood but it was definitely worth it, probably one of the coolest ways to send someone off on a mission.

And finally! I've been searching for ages for someone who's from Hawaii. We started teaching English classes to these Colombian people, and we found out that they lived in Hawaii for 11 years, and that some of them knew my Grandfather when he was a temple President! So, even though some might not consider them "Locals" of Hawaii, I'm considering my search complete.

Well, other than that, nothing crazy has happened this past week, just the usual missionary work stuff.

Anyways, spiritual thought for today? Obedience. Why does the Lord give us commandments, why should we follow them? There's lots of deep answers you can give, lots of complex ones, but I like Joseph Smith's quote - "When the Lord commands, do it". It's quite simple.

Thanks everyone for your love and support,

Elder Ho

Lawn Mowing

It's been a while since I last cut some grass, so we took the opportunity to do so this week! We knocked on a lady's door who is of the Bahai faith (they believe all religions are true?), and she was surprised when we offered to help her with anything. She was just about to mow the lawn, so after convincing her we weren't kidding and that we were fully serious about providing service, we drove home, changed, came back, and mowed her lawn. We got some free sandwiches out of it. We also contacted a recent convert who we hadn't seen in a bit, and she needed some lawn mowing so we mowed hers too! That lawn was crazy though, we had to empty the catcher on the mower probably every minute... the grass was pretty thick and overgrown. It was nice seeing the finished result though.

I also got to go on tradeoffs with Elder Troff, or, Grandmaster Troff. He's an elder serving in Windaroo (my old area), and he's obtained the title of Chess World Champion for the under 14's age group or something, and his chess title is Grandmaster, which I think is pretty cool. It was a fun tradeoff though, got to see old friends and have dinner with a family that I used to know pretty well.

Investigator-wise, we're doing good. One of our investigators is going through a bit of a tough time though. He sees the good in the church and the blessings it's brought into the lives of those around him, but his wife is upset that he's meeting with us. It's kinda sad that he's got to somehow work through this predicament, but at the same time it's shown us that he really is interested. The fact that he's worried so much about his wife not wanting him to meet with us yet he still really wants to, and the fact that he's so torn between the two sides, shows us that this whole time he really has been very interested to learn more, and he sees something in the gospel that he really wants. Anyways, we also met another investigator for the first time, apparently she's a pro tennis player and travels a lot for it, which makes it kinda hard to have lessons consistently, but she's also pretty interested at the moment, which is cool. Realising that she's travelling the world for tennis, and that the other elder has travelled the world for chess, and their both younger than me, has made me realise that I need to become pro at something soon so I can start travelling the world too. Maybe I'll be a pro lawn-mower, I think I'm off to a great start.

Well, my spiritual thought for today will be on faith. I studied it a bit recently, and one thing that I found interesting is how Christ says that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. How can faith so small move a mountain? It's not the quantity of faith that matters, but the quality of faith. When your faith is more like a demonstrative, public type of faith, it doesn't necessarily mean it's the greatest type of faith. Just because we're popular and well known for our beliefs, like some sort of preacher, or "ranked high" in some sort of church, it doesn't necessarily mean that we have this type of faith Christ is talking about. Quality faith may be small, but it's sincere, it's hopeful, it has true intent, and it's firm. That's the faith that brings miracles. Elder M Russel Ballard compared it to an anchor. There are anchors that are massive, bigger than us, with huge, solid chain links connecting it to the ship. But in comparison to the ship that uses it, it's small, almost nothing. Yet this anchor, that is miniature in comparison to the ship, manages to hold it in place in the worst of storms. And that is what this "quality" faith, even the size of a mustard seed, can do for us.

Thanks everyone for your love and support!

Elder Ho

The ABM 500

So with the new year came a great miracle! Our mission goal for 2017 was to reach 500 baptisms, and for some of the months it seemed like we weren't going to make it. During December, we needed something like 50 baptisms, which is crazy, especially considering that December is usually a busy month and it results in a lower amount of baptisms than usual. On New Years Eve, Sunday, we were at 499 baptisms... but then a stake President, aware of our situation, went out and talked to a part member family and committed one of them to be baptised on that Sunday, making it the 500th baptism we needed to hit our goal! It just goes to show that miracles can happen!

Anyways this past week was a fun one! We started it off on our last Pday with a lunch with President McSwain, because our zone hit our goals! It was a fun lunch, and the burgers were very good! We also got to play a fun charades kind of game.

We also had a mission wide conference on friday, and Brad Wilcox came to speak to us! He's basically a big motivational speaker in the church (I suggest googling him if you don't know him, he's got some cool talks). It was a morning where we were just smashed with Revelation, I couldn't take notes fast enough. I'll kinda use his message at the end of my email for my little spiritual thought...

Missionary work wise, we've been going pretty good. We started teaching a wonderful couple! One of them is a member who's coming back to church, and the other is an investigator who's excited to be baptised! They're awesome and really humble, and we've been able to set some goals with them to help them progress in the gospel. We also found another investigator too! We ended up printing 77 pages of a ward list - yep it's a big ward. The printer was very low on ink, but miracles happen and we managed to spit out these 77 pages with no issues. Then we went through them and began to try to visit as many of the families we could. As we tried to follow up on one of them, we knocked on this door and a lady from PNG came out and began to talk to us. After a bit of confusion we found out she wasn't the person we were looking for, that person had moved, but she had met missionaries before in the city and gave them their number, but they never ended up calling her! Then here we were, at her door, and she happily allowed us to come back later and begin teaching her.

And door knocking! It's always fun, especially in the Brisbane heat. We have been blessed though, as usual, with interesting and great experiences. First off, we knocked into an illusionist/magician, who had us think of a card in our head then tell it to him, then he pulled out a deck of cards, went through it, found one that was flipped upside-down, then showed us the card we picked... the 3 of hearts! It was cool. Only difference between us and him is that our magic is real (yay for priesthood). We also ran into a lady who's a "Born Again Christian", and after talking to us for a bit she proceededt o tell us that we basically didn't know Jesus Christ and did have him in our lives because we didn't say the "prayer of salvation". We talked to her a bit more about how we were apparently not going to heaven and stuff. I ended up asking her about what happens to those who die without hearing about Jesus Christ. She responds, "that's what internet and missionaries are for", and told us EVERYONE will learn about Jesus Christ in this life. That's when I knew she was a bit off. We tried bearing testimony to her but she wouldn't listen, so that's when thanked her for her time and left. We did get another door knocking miracle though! A few days later we door knocked into a lady from Brazil, who has actually met with missionaries many times before, and is really nice! Even her children, as they grew up, enjoyed having the missionaries over. Sadly, of all the doors we knock on the mission, she happens to be one of the few that invites us in to share a message on the spot, and we can't go in because her husband was at work... but we'll be coming back later to share more!

Also, thanks to one of our members, I now know that there are such things as peanut butter trees, ice cream treas, and chocolate pudding trees, because he's growing all of them in his yard. After a dinner with this member, we took a walk through his yard and ate and looked at all kinds of fruits, from panama berry's to pineapples, bunya pine nuts to dragon fruit... it reminded me of Charly and the Chocolate factory, where everything in one of the rooms is edible. Unfortunately, I probably wont be around when the chocolate pudding tree and some of the others produce fruit.

And in closing, the spiritual message. So Brad Wilcox asked the question of why we, as members of the church, have to do things that nonmembers don't have to. Why we have to keep all these commandments, why we have to help others and preach the gospel, or even go on missions. He said that sometimes the primary answers of "we're children of God" don't cut it for some of us, because "we're all children of God, members or not". He then explained it's because we have the "birthright". He explained the 12 tribes of Israel, going all the way back to how they started and their purpose. It's all a bit deep, but awesome to learn about, and it would take ages for me to explain it through email, but if you ever feel like it go ahead and study the birthright and the tribes of Israel. In the end, basically as members we have the special responsibility to prepare the world for the second coming, to help and serve others, and to bring the gospel to them. Kinda put a whole new perspective on my role, not just as a missionary but as a member of this church. So, if you maybe feel like you're unlucky for being a member, just know that you're part of the birthright and you've been specially prepared for your role here in this life!

Thanks everyone for your love and support,

Elder Ho

UFO's

So this past week went by pretty quick. I think the highlight of the week was having a baptism of a family we've been teaching! I think I mentioned them in my last email, but basically they texted us before we even met them, saying that they wanted their children to be baptized. So after a few weeks of teaching them we baptized their two children! 

We also got to do some service monday morning for a lady from Argentina, helping her move dirt around her house and pull weeds. It wasn't too bad, but the heat was crazy, and we were just sweating buckets of water while getting barked at by her three-legged dog. 

And yesterday we did a lot of door knocking, and ended up talking to this drunk guy for about 20 minutes. We talked about the Book of Mormon and he talked about how he say floating UFO's, we talked about God and Jesus Christ and he talked about how people existed on this planet before us, we talked about prophets and he talked about asteroids nearly hitting and ending the world.

Other than that, it was a pretty average week, so I'll end the email here. But thank you all for your love and support!

Elder Ho

Happy Holidays!

First off, pday's are now changed to Wednesday, so I will be emailing on Wednesday. Anyways, Happy Holidays everyone! The past two weeks have been great. We got to skype home on Christmas, well, for us it was "boxing day" (the day after Christmas). Still not sure why they call it boxing day. And on Christmas day itself, we got to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with members! We had a great time at everyone's houses, and had lots of good food.

We also have been able to see a cool miracle! While on tradeoffs with our leaders, we were door knocking and ran into this Christian guy who we got to have a chat with. Somehow he started talking about how the earth was flat, and all these different evidences to prove it. It was really interesting... but during that conversation we heard a text come in on our 200 year old nokia phones. After talking to this flat-world guy, we checked the phone, and realised it was a text from someone who apparently used to be investigating the church, and now wants her children to be baptised! I guess sometimes the missionaries aren't the only ones that set baptismal dates. We've been teaching the family a bit now, and they're really humble and nice, and seem to understand the importance of the gospel in their lives. 

Another miracle was when the sister missionaries gave us a call, asking if we could come give a blessing to someone they were teaching. We came over, and met this family who were all nonmembers except for the dad, who hasn't been to church in ages. We explained was blessings were and gave one to one of their sons, not really knowing what was wrong but just being told that he isn't very well at all. It was a good experience, but we left the house and around a week passed and we both didn't think much of it. Then the sisters called us one day as we were door knocking, telling us that the person we blessed was healed, and that now the family wants to come to church and the mom has expressed a desire to get baptised!

And now, awkward experience of the week. Out of the many awkward experiences that we have as missionaries, I've selected one to send out today. We went to a more wealthy neighbourhood in our area for a dinner appointment, and after knocking on the door that we thought was the member's we see a car pull in to the driveway. We smile and wave, excited for dinner, only to realise that the person getting out of the car is nobody we know. Maybe it's a relative? After trying to talk to them, we realise he doesn't speak very much English, and in a thick accent tells us, "what are you doing here", and we eventually realise that he isn't planning on feeding us dinner, and that we have the wrong house. We did eventually make it to dinner, and got to have some pizza. 

I also just want to express my appreciation for those random members that take care of us! After walking through a park, and stepping on some dog poo, a family of islanders started calling out to us as I was awkwardly trying to wipe my shoe in the grass. We had no idea who they were, but they told us they were from another ward, and then gave us heaps of fruits and drinks and chips. I love my area.

Oh, and we got to have an exciting New Years Eve! Actually, not really, we just came back to the flat at 5:30, and we were told that we weren't allowed to leave, even to visit members. So for the rest of the night we cooked, ate, and even watched a 9:00 firework show from our balcony. Then we got woken up at 4 in the morning as some neighbours, who we assume were drunk, were loudly talking and walking up the staircase to their apartment. Happy New Year!

Anyways, just wanted to say thank Pearl City ward and my family for sending me gifts and food! Thanks everyone for your love and support,

Elder Ho