Tuesday, January 16, 2018

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

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