Surprise

So surprise email! They recently told us that they'll be moving our pday to monday for this week, so yeah, surprise. I don't have much to email about. Last week we just did our deep cleaning because the transfer was coming to an end, sooo fun!

And we found out that all three of us are going to be staying together again for this upcoming transfer! Kind of a surprise.

And the last thing to email about, is that last week we had Elder Cardon come to visit our mission! He spoke a lot about knowing who we are. There are many valid answers to answer the question of who we are, but he focused on us knowing that we are the seed of Abraham, which, in many scriptures, says that we will bless nations and families. As members, whether converts or born into the church, we are all part of Abraham's seed. Elder Cardon tried to give us a new outlook on missionary work, a new perspective, which, if applied, while change the way we work.

Anyways, thanks everyone for your love and support, the next email should be next wednesday!

Elder Ho

PS - since the email is short I'll just send some pictures

Getting ready to door knock on tradeoffs:

Random Pday Picture:

Door knocking as a district with members:

Cremation?

More door knocking experiences! We met this one older lady, who told us her stories of her travels around the world. We shared a bit about the Plan of Salvation, and asked her what her beliefs are about afterlife. She said that she wants to be cremated, because that is how your soul is released from your body... something like that. I think I'd rather be cremated then buried in a box too, but still deciding...

Also met this guy named Dan while door knocking, and after chatting to him for a bit, he let us share the Plan of Salvation with him too! We plan on going back this week to teach him a bit more, it's just always great to have the opportunity to teach people at the door.

We've also started teaching a nonmember that has been living with a very active family, and she's doing awesome! She's even told us that one of her goals is to serve a mission in the future, and she's not even baptised yet... you don't hear that from nonmembers very often.

What else have we been doing this week... well I couldn't continue on without my fix of lawn mowing. We got to mow this lawn that hadn't been mowed in a few months, and that was one of those things that was oddly satisfying to do. It was a long project, and pretty big, but I always love seeing the lawn go from overgrown to neatly cut. So that was fun.

It's also been the Commonwealth games! Didn't get to watch any of it though, but got to hear a lot about it! For all my Americans out there, it's a pretty long event, over a week long, kinda like the Olympics, but for all the countries under the commonwealth. Apparently New Zealand and Australia smashed most of the competition. And now it's done, so finally all the roads that were closed off for 2 weeks are opening back up again!

And lastly, we had a culture night for the Pimpama ward! It was to celebrate the ... 175th? Birthday of the Relief society program! So they put together a dinner thing for the ward! There were around 6 to 8 different tables, each presenting different cultural decorations and objects, and then heaps of food, from all the different cultures that were presented. Amongst all of it was Tongan, Samoan, Maori, South American, Asian, and European... I may have missed one or two. You don't usually get to eat Taro and Mexican food all at the same time.

Anyways, thank you all for your love and support!

Elder Ho

Good Eats

So last week for PDay, we went to a Filipino shop with some other elders (one of them was Filipino), and then I saw something... a weirdly coloured egg - Balut! So a few of us bought one for each of us, then we went home, cooked some chicken adobo, then boiled the balut! We ate it, and it wasn't too bad to be honest... tasted like a really off or weird egg. It's kinda cool, you crack it open, drink the juices, then peel the shell off of the baby duck/chicken and then enjoy! Probably the most exotic food thing I've tried in Australia, and it's not even Australian. 

Also had some good teaching appointments this past week. One was with a Cook Islander, and we got to teach him the restoration! We also taught the restoration to this nonmember girl that's living with a very active family. She's really interested on finding out if the church really is true or not, so we're excited to work with her!

And I know, we're a week behind on General Conference so you've all seen it and talked about it for a while now, but we got to watch it and it was awesome! Cool changes, new temples, new Prophet, solemn assembly, and hearing Elder Holland spit fire once again... it was awesome!

Another highlight of the week... our investigator getting baptised! The best part about it was being able to see her husband baptise her, and participate in confirming her. My old companion, Elder Martin, also got to come see her get baptised, so it was fun being able to reunite for a bit.

Highlight number two... had dinner with a ... Samoan/Maori family? They've been to Hawaii though before, and they made Spam Musubi for dinner. SO GOOD! Brought back almost a little too much memories... but worth it though. I only devoured 4, I'm still a bit rusty on my musubi eating skills.

And for my little spiritual thought for this week, we met this random cool guy the other day who taught us about some of his beliefs. One thing he said was his interpretation of the word, "God". He said it stands for "Great Original Designer". So, just a reminder for this week, don't forget about your Great Original Designer, and the amount of detail he put into making this beautiful world we live in!

-Elder Ho

Another good week down under! Last week for pday was played some volleyball and table tennis with a couple other Elders, and that was fun.

Also, random door knocking experience. Because there is three of us in this companionship, we only have 2 of us go to knock on a door and one stays back and watches us. As Elder Karina and I come back from a door, our third companion zooms towards us on some random kid's scooter he found lying in the yard. As we knock the next door, she asks him, "were you the random guy riding my son's scooter"? Turns out she saw him... in the end we taught her a lesson though, and had a good laugh. New door knocking approach found!

I also had a member from the Cook Islands sing me a song about how I need to learn how to sing and play the guitar on my mission... I don't think that's something that my mission President would want me to pursue on my mission.

Friday morning, we also got to play a bit of touch rugby with our Elder's quorum, and had a bit of a bbq after. Shortly after, we went and mowed someone's lawn and trimmed their hedges. We also got to play a bit with their dogs, two beautiful Siberian huskies. After the service, we got to have a little chat with the member we did service for, and got to hear stories of him out in the Australian bush as a kid, hunting buffalo with Helicopters and driving ute's through trees and bush. Pretty adventurous upbringing.

The rest of our week was filled with giving blessings, door knocking, and some teaching appoints! Nothing out of the ordinary. Oh, and a member gave us fish last night, so my companion cooked it up with some onions and coconut milk - yum!

Anyways, thanks for enduring through this unorganised random email, a lot of random things happened this week. Thanks everyone for your love and support!

Elder Ho