Week96

你好 Mates

This week, we found 3 new investigators. Lily, Fitsum, and Suing, Lily is an older lady, and Suing is younger from Cambodia. Fitsum is from Ethiopia. Our companion Elder Edwards is a machine, he found all three of these people. Heavenly Father really does put people in our path. 

Suing apperantly was going to be baptized in Cambodia a while back but didn't because she was moving to Australia. Her aunt is a member and took her to church and was taught by the missionaries there, and magically she bumped into Elder Edwards. When we met with her the first time, we invited her to be baptized, she said " Yup, that's the plan". We still haven't met with her the second time yet because she's really busy with school and work, just like all of our other investigators....

Lily is from China, she's learning English and the Gospel from a different church, but when we contacted her she said she wanted to learn more. When we taught about the nature of God, it was cool how she understood it so well. She told us that in the other churches, they teach about the trinity, and how it makes no sense to her. When we taught that they were 3 separate beings she was really surprised because it was the first time she had heard about it and she said it made so much sense.

Fitsum had been praying for more spirituality in his life. He was on his way to work and saw us. He said that when he past by us, he prayed that we would approach him, which Elder Edwards did and now he is investigating the church. He still has some more learning to do and we will be reteaching somethings. He has been in Australia for 7 years but there is still a small language barrier so we will be helping him understand simply the Gospel.

That's probably the coolest thing that happened this week.

Love Elder Westbrook

Week95

Hello!

I can never remember what goes on during the week...but I'll try my best!

We finally found some people to teach this week, we have spent about a month finding and finally found some! Not sure how solid they are yet but, we will try to continue to meet with them.

There were some investigators that just got back from China. We were so glad that they still want to meet because all of a sudden they stopped responding to texts and calls. Turns out they just went to China. Brother Lu is one of them and also Anna and Lily. We were so excited that they are back and ready to be taught.

We moved to a new flat and we're still working on organizing the new one and the old one. It's a lot nicer than the old one so we're happy about that. Before we left the old flat, the kitchen flooded, and we had to pull up the carpet and everything. It's a mess right now. 

One change that happened in our mission is Pday. Pday will now be one Wednesdays from now on. 

Week93

大家你好

This week was pretty great. We had our Christmas conference and some other things happened as well. 

Well to start off my golden is my companion Elder Morris again. He has been serving in the office for 10 months and just got out today. I feel like I'm training him again, it's nice to be with my old friend. Elder Zhang has been transferred to an English speaking area, he was really bummed out about it. But President wants him to learn some skills about running a ward that he wants Elder Zhang to take home with him so he can grow the church where he lives. Getting to know Elder Zhang has made me want to live in China and grow the church there. Since there are no full-time missionaries in China, the church grows solely on member missionary work. Every single member that has been baptized in China is a referral from family or friends. If we could get the church to grow like that in every ward, I believe the church would double in it's membership and activity. 

So a miracle happened this week. We got a new investigator name brother Lu. He is a friend of our recent converts, Mark Sun. So this is how he was found. Mark Sun was in our office parking lot on the way to a lesson that we were going to have with him. While in the parking lot, he saw someone familiar. It was a friend that he knew from back home. Mark Sun left home to Australia in August, and Brother Lu left in April. Neither of them knew where each other where going and hadn't had contact since. So Mark Sun just so happened to bump into him on the way to his lesson and brought him in and we taught both of them and invited them to church.Brother Lu, we found out he is a Christian from another church he joined in China. He was baptized into that church so we explained to him about Priesthood Authority. He seems to except it pretty well. We haven't set him on date yet。

Love Elder Westbrook

Week92

Hello Everyone

Sorry not much time today. This week was good. We did a lot of finding. Jack's family is against him being baptized so we dropped his date. We are still meeting with him weekly.

Love Elder Westbrook

Week91

Hello!

We've been struggling to find new investigators these past few weeks. Our investigator Jack is afraid to be baptized because he joined the Communist Party and is scared that if he got baptized the government would do something to his family. He has been avoiding to meet us for the last little while. His date is now not very solid. We are trying to get some members to talk to him, so they can explain that there's nothing to be afraid of. We have plenty of members that have joined that are fine. 

While we were visiting Brother Huang, a recent convert, we saw a book of his family history. We were so excited because we are going to the temple on Thursday. We got a family search account for him and he spent hours just putting them in the computer. We hope we can get them printed when we go and do baptisms. 

Because we are so low on investigators, especially with Christmas and new year's, we have been working more closely with our members and inviting them to bring their friends to an activity. We have a stake activity coming up, so hopefully we can get some mebers to bring their friends. 

In the past, the Sunnybank Branch has only baptized YSA, who come here just for school, so they aren't very stable. We now have Brother Huang, Mark Sun, and Jack(if he get's baptized), who will be permanent members here to take care of the branch. Elder Zhang and I have realized that if we really want to grow this branch, we can't spend that much time out street contacting. We have to have the members bring their friends. That's the only way we will grow and strengthen this branch. We hope and pray that our members will be inspired invite their friends to meet with us as we invite the members to do missionary work.

Love Elder Westbrook

Here's a picture of a rainbow​​

Week90

Hello 

This week was a blur. We were out pretty much finding everyday. Since it's finals this time of the year in Australia, most of our investigators haven't had time to meet with us. We hit up the members list for our branch and started visiting less actives. Haven't had much success in that, but we keep trying. We had a Zone interview with President on Wednesday. Because Mission Presidents are supposed to have interviews every transfers now, that kind of cuts much of the Presidents time so once in a while we will have zone interviews, where basically he gives us counsel. 

We had to have Elders Quorum outside on Sunday since our room was taken by the Primary. It was fun but hot.

Love Elder Westbrook

week89

Hello 

Not bad this week, we set Jack on date. He was just a random contact that we met at the sunny bank bus stop. We invited him to FHE and gave him a Book of Mormon. He really insisted on not taking one, but my golden insisted that he take one. I was a little worried that we were being too pushy, especially on someone that we met for the first time. He accepted it though. The next time we called him to meet, he said that he really needed to talk to us about the Book of Mormon. We were excited. When we met up and asked him how his reading went, he said he noticed a strong peaceful feeling come over him. We testified and taught about the Holy Ghost in receiving a witness. Then just yesterday, while he was waiting for us to arrive at the lesson, he pulled out the Book of Mormon and read to chapter 10 in 1 Nephi, when we asked about how he felt, he said chapter 8 really stuck out to him. He said he had had a very similar dream when he was little about a tree in a really dark place, in the end he partook of the tree, but he didn't know what the meaning was of the tree. We were pretty blown away when he told us this. We continued to teach him the meaning of the dream and how it applies to us. He accepted to be baptized on the 16th of December. We are excited for him.

Love Elder Westbrook

Week88

Good day Mates

Had a good week finding. We didn't have anything else to do so we just went out finding all week. We have been trying to get our recent converts to get on family search and start their family tree, but most of them find it hard because they don't have the records. It will be great if they could get some names to the temple. Getting them to do family history has got me excited as well; I have two names ready to be printed and taken to the temple. 

I will be training Elder Fung this transfer. We went from a companionship of 5 to 3. We are relived that there aren't 5 of us anymore. We can actually get organized now. We were just notified that we will be having 2 general authorities come to our mission this Friday, so we will see how that goes.

Love Elder Westbrook

Week87

Hello!

 Really slow this week. We don't have anymore investigators to teach. One of them went back to Taiwan. The other one moved to the city. So we are stuck just finding all day. It will be good for us to finally get out and work. 

At family home evening, Mark, our recent convert gave a really good lesson. While he was teaching he asked for two non members to come up and sit in two chairs, then he proceeded to teach the plan of salvation using the two non members as Adam and Eve. It was really funny because at the Earth life part, he invited those two to be baptized. The two non members hadn't even taken the discussions yet, but it was a great intro for both of them. Hopefully he didn't scare them away. 

See you next week.

Love Elder Westbrook

Week 86

Hello!

Sorry not much time today. The baptism of Gui Gui was really good. The spirit was strong. Now we need to work on finding new people to teach.

week85

Hello Mates

Mark Sun's baptism was this Saturday. It was awesome. More people than usual showed up to the baptism. He was really nervous before the baptism as everyone is, but he really enjoyed the service. He bore a wonderful testimony of the Book of Mormon and Heavenly Father. That day was the day of his rebirth, but also the birth of his son who is in China with Marks wife. He is excited to bring his family over to Aussie Land. 

We also set someone else on date named Nicco. She is from Taiwan and is here living with her daughter. Lyna, our investigator used to be Niccos tenant. They didn't get along very well so Lyna moved out. Lyna would always complain about how bad her landlord was. As we were moving Lyna out of Niccos house, Nicco approached us and wanted the discussions. We were a little sceptical but we went anyway. turns out she is a really good person and genuine about being baptized. She completely caught us off guard when she told us she wants to get baptized. Even though Lyna and Nicco don't get along, they are still our investigators and will be attending the same meetings so we just have to teach more about repentance and forgiveness I guess. 

Xiao Lan, our eternigator is studying design at school and she designed a pattern and printed it on cloth and made us some matching ties. They are pretty sweet.

 Love Elder Westbrook

Week84

Hello everyone!

Mark Sun just finished his baptismal interview on Sunday and getting ready to be baptised on Saturday. He is awesome. When we taught him Word of Wisdom and Tithing, it was hard for him to take in. He said that he committed to be baptized already so he won't back out. He is willing to live the commandments.

We taught Gui Gui all four lessons this week and now were moving on to lesson 5. We didn't think we would have so much time. Her baptism is in two weeks so right now we are working on solidifying her. It's so great to see how this really is the Lord's work. Both Mark and Gui Gui have expressed how they have seen blessings come into their life after they have been meeting with the missionaries. This was nothing that we did. It was just the Lord working through us to help others, and I am indeed grateful for that.

We will be getting 3 new missionaries this week. We will have the biggest zone in the mission with 21 missionaries, though we will be losing 3 in the next 3 weeks. Our zone is the youngest in the mission as well, so there will be much training for the Goldens. 

Love Elder Westbrook