The Moringa Tree

This week wasn't the most interesting week, so I'm thinking really hard about things to email about. Hence the title. We had dinner with a very healthy couple the other night, and they put this green powder into the food, which is apparently ground up leaves from the moringa tree. I think we spent a large chunk of the dinner listening to how the moringa tree is super healthy and has a lot of different uses. Then they picked a branch from the tree in the back yard, and I ate a flower and some leaves, straight from the tree. So, if for some reason any of you are wondering what kind of tree to plant in your yard, I suggest the moringa tree!

We've also received some cool blessings from the Lord this past week! One of them is helping a part member family (grandmother is less active, grandson is not a member) move into our ward, and we're hoping to find more opportunities to serve them, and in the end turn it into a teaching opportunity. We also got a call from our zone leaders, saying that a member from one of the wards they cover (my first area, Capalaba!) was leaving on a mission, but the day before introduced his friend to the missionaries and they had a lesson with them. The best part is that this friend lives in our area, and the we'll hopefully be continuing the teaching!

I guess another awesome thing we got to experience was going to teach another part member family. The grandmother is from Africa, and doesn't speak much English, but we always do little magic tricks and object lessons with the grandkids. After we finished our awesome magic trick/gospel lesson this time, the grandma proceeded to tell us that she and the three grandkids are coming to church and that they need us to set up a ride for them! Then, after many Sundays of people promising they'll come to church then not turning up, they made my Sunday by coming and staying for all three hours! Happy -  a simple yet perfect word to describe my feelings as I saw they grandkids run up the stairs to the chapel, followed by the grandmother dressed in her colorful cultural-styled sunday clothes.

Anyways, I think that's it for this week. Thanks everyone for your love and support!

-Elder Ho

PS: And thanks to Elder Hymas for being my awesome zone leader for nearly 6 months, and for all the extra K's you gave us... haha

Where's The Sun?

Although it's supposed to be getting hotter now, with summer coming, we got hit with a week of clouds and rain. Perfect timing, because this was also the week we planned on dedicating most of our time to door knocking. We absolutely destroyed our goal for the number of people we were going to talk to, but there were a few prices to pay, like people thinking that something's mentally wrong with us for door knocking in the rain, and shoes that are still a bit damp even though I've tried to dry them out (yes I'm wearing them at the moment, it's pretty sad). 

We did get to have some cool experiences though this week! Sometimes you hear of members surprising inviting their nonmember friends to dinner then surprising them with the missionaries suddenly turning up (it's the ambush tactic, I don't suggest doing it though). This week was the other way around, we turned up to a dinner on Tuesday with the member's less active son and nonmember wife already there, and next thing you know we're changing our lesson plan and preparing to teach the restoration! It was a good experience though. The same thing happened just last night, were a member's aunty (from China?) walked out of the room and we ended up trying to teach her about God and His purpose! We had a good time though.

We spent a lot of time in the rain this week, as mentioned earlier! We got to play touch rugby in the mornings, which ended up being a muddy and slippery experience! We also got to talk to a lot of people at the doors in the rain! One of them chastised us for being out and commanded us to go home and take a warm shower and sleep. The adversary sure was tempting us there!

Anyways, looking forward to Halloween, although not too much happens here compared to Halloween in Australia. The ward is doing their first trunk-or-treat, although some members are anti-halloween and are against the "evil spirit" it brings... so yeah it'll be interesting to get people's opinions on Halloween this week.

Anyways, that's all for today, thanks everyone for your love and support, and hope you all have an awesome week!

Elder Ho

Hitting the Doors!

So this past week was pretty good, started it off with a Pday, so we did the usual pday stuff, got haircuts, and did some 1v1 with my companion in table tennis / ping pong. I know, I know, exciting stuff.

Also, the temperature is still bipolar here! It was really hot as we mowed a less active member's lawn! But then rains and pours as we try to door knock. The lawn mowing was good though, we got to talk with him for a bit after, and this guy has had a crazy life. He traveled the world for work, and has crazy stories of surviving massive river bores in the jungles, crazy helicopter rides, and much more. He even shared with us some of his mission stories, like getting held up by 14 "Filipino jungle ninjas with guns". No other way to describe them.

And as I mentioned earlier, and, as you can see in the title, we have received a lot of encouragement to focus our efforts on tracting and contacting people! So this past week we did quite a bit of door knocking, and got to have a lot of interesting experienceds from that. Some of the weirdest mission experiences come from door knocking! First off, we met Mark, who let us in right away. He was kind of an older man with long white hair, and a lot white beard, and didn't seem totally there, but apparently met with missionaries before. In his house were all these pictures and statues of catholic stuff and Jesus. He talked about how people have seen visions, how he's a strong catholic and reads lots of crazy books, how he thinks the pope is evil but catholocism is the truest religion, and how people were visited by Jesus telling them to paint pictures of him. I asked if we could share something from the book of Mormon, and he paused, said no real quick, then went right back on talking about his catholic statues and pictures. After escaping his house it was getting a bit late soe  did some street contacting and ran into a guy sitting on a bench. We asked if we could give him a pamphlet since he looked a bit busy, but then he put down his papers, took off his glasses, looked up to us and said, "do you want to go to heaven?" - here we go. It ended up not being a bash though and just a friendly discussion about repentance and turning to Jesus. And his dog stealing his bacon? I have no idea how that story was relevant to what he was trying to teach us. 

Over the next few days of door knocking we also met Fia from Thailand, who we taught a lesson to at the door and answered a lot of his questions! Somehow we ended up motivating him to try going to church for the first time (he's got a buddhist background), and then he said he'd give it a try and go to his Jehovah Witness girlfriend's church - I guess a church is better than no church at all right?

We also met Jody, a Seventh Day Adventist, and he let us in to talk about his missionary work, discuss gospel principles, and also how much he's changed his life. We also got to share a message with Steven, who also had a bit of a rough history but a pretty cool "conversion" story to Christ, and changed his life. He told us we really uplifted him and reminded him about how he needs to get back on track again, which was good.

I also had to give up my companion for a day and a half to go to an orientation thing, and got 2 temporary companions for that time, who were in the same situation as me. We had a blast, door knocking all day and talking about mission life and teasing one of them (who is going home in a month or two).

And more good news! We got a new car! Well, newer than the last one we had. Our zone leaders got the one of the newest cars on the mission, so they gave us their car, which was quite an upgrade from our other one, so I can't complain. Hello touchscreen radio controls, cruise control, reversing camera, and more! Thanks zone leaders if your reading this!

Anyways, thanks everyone for your love and support! Have a great week!

Elder Ho

Revelation

I've got a lot to do today, and not much time, so I'll keep this email quick! But this past week was good! We got a sudden, heavy rain one day, which poured super hard for 15 minutes and then it was gone! Which then gave us time to see all those we planned to see. So yep, I'm loving Australia weather. Also, since it's warming up, I got to see a pet snake come out of hibernation, which was cool. Nothing else new has been happening recently though, we've just been doing the usual here, with lots of door knocking. However, the highlight of the week has been General Conference! I know, I'm a week late here in Australia, but everything that was on my mind, everything that I wanted them to talk about, they talked about, addressing everything I was thinking of specifically! It was a pretty awesome conference, every conference on the mission is like Christmas. Anyways, thanks all for your love and support, hope you all have an awesome week!

Elder Ho

Happy Birthday?

So it's been a busy week and a half! For the first few days I was stuck with 2 temporary companions, I think I mentioned it last time, and we had a good time together! We did a lot of door knocking, and even had a good dinner at the bishop's house with all three of us! It ended great, with one of the Elders tearing his pants mid-lesson, with a massive hole that he was trying to cover as we finished up the lesson. Lucky for him, the Bishop's wife sewed it all up while he awkwardly sat in one of the bedrooms while we loyally guarded the door, teasing him and laughing from the outside.

On Wednesday all of us picked up our new companions, and my new companion's name is Elder Waqalevu! He's from Fiji, and apparently his name translated to english means "big boat". We're excited to working together and working hard in Holland Park!

Also, within one week it went from pretty cool to super hot! There were two days were it felt like the moment we stepped out of the car, we were stepping into a preheated oven. Fun. Fortunately, the Lord had a little pity on us and probably didn't want us to get dehydrated on fast Sunday, so it dropped around 10 degrees Celsius in one day and Sunday was nice and cloudy. Then it rained, which was great. Australia's weather just a bit bipolar.

So the reason why we are emailing today instead of monday is because monday was a public Holiday! It was Queensland's holiday to celebrate the Queen's birthday - which is actually sometime in April I heard. So why do they have it this past monday? I'd love to know myself. And I think most of the Australians are just excited that they get the day off, not too much talk about the Queen, some of them didn't really even know why it was a Holiday. We had to work that day though, so they moved our pday to today!

And lastly, we had an awesome zone conference! We got to wake up a bit early and go on a roadtrip with our zone leaders to zone conference! We were able to learn a lot and get a lot of trainings! They taught us about the importance of finding people to teach and how we need to step up our efforts, and we also got to learn a lot about priesthood blessings and consecrating oil. And before we went home, they gave us our usb's with music on it! Last week they took them from us so they could check for music and other stuff that we aren't supposed to have, and then at the same time give us some new music to listen to (we have a set playlist that we are allowed to hear). So I went for a week long fast without music, and I never thought I'd be so excited to hear music again! There's some pretty interesting music on there and we got to jam out to a bit of it on the long road-trip back home. Who knew I'd be into country music?

Anyways, for the spiritual thought, I'll just take something they shared with us at the zone conference. They shared a mormon message with us, which talked about how the Lord is always pouring blessings upon us! A lot of us just don't see it, and our sin is like us putting up umbrella's in the rain instead of enjoying the rain. So repent! And don't allow yourself or your attitude to get in the way of the shower of all the blessings that the Lord is giving us!

Thanks for all your love and support!

Elder Ho

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