Week 32

Hello

Pretty slow this week. We had dinner with bishop, that was great. We really got to know our Bishop a little more. He works for an explosives company. We did a lot of finding this week since it was general conference last week. I stayed awake through all the sessions for the first time ever! Taking notes on the talks really helps me to stay awake. 

Ryosuke's baptism date got changed to December 3 since we are waiting for his girlfriend to move out so he can live the law of chastity. All we have left is the 10 commandments and tithing. So far he is doing really well with everything we have taught. He continues to read the Book of Mormon every day. We will do a fast with him this week so he can receive an answer.

We have mostly been out GQing this last week with little success. We will be contacting some of our phone numbers this week.

Hope all is well back at home

Love Elder Westbrook

Week 31

Hello all!

Don't have much time this week, but here are some pictures.​

Week 30

Hello! 

We have a new investigator this week named John. He is a refferal from the sisters. He is Chinese and learning English. We are mainly helping him with his language test for this Saturday and teaching the Gospel in the end of our meeting. He says he feels peace when he prays so we hope he can progress.

Ryosuke has been doing well with commandments. We are helping him quit smoking. He is still waiting for his answer. He has committed to go from 20 sticks to 9 sticks a day. We have asked him to ask his girlfriend if she would like to learn about the gospel. We don't want Ryosuke to be the only one living the gospel if he is in a relationship. 

One of our members randomly asked if we are teaching a guy named Conor. We said we used to. Conor is an Aussie that we dropped because he wouldn't answer our calls our texts. He had a date and everything and was excited to be baptized. We don't know why he stopped answering us. But anyway, the member said he met Conor at a party and started talking and learned that he used to meet with us. So now we have contact with Conor again. Our prayers have been answered, and hopefully this is the right time for Conor to except the Gospel.

Sorry if I have any grammar mistakes, trying to hurry through emailing.

All is well, all is well!

Elder Westbrook

Week 29

Hello!

Not bad this week, one day we had 3 lessons on the street. We started talking to them on the street and then found a spot on some grass and taught some lessons. We got one investigator from that so far and will follow up with him.

Ryosuke has a date for the 22nd of October. He is progressing quite well and has been reading the Book of Mormon quite often. We are just waiting for a spiritual confirmation. Today we will be helping him to recognize the Holy Ghost. Right now Ryosuke is in the Lord's hands. We will be here to answer any questions and he will do all the reading and praying. We are excited for him to find an answer for himself. Church has been a struggle for him since he doesn't understand English very well. Baden in our ward has been a tremendous help in teaching and fellow shipping Ryosuke.

 Most of our other investigators don't answer their phone so it's hard to be able to meet with them. Our meal appointment policy has changed. It used to be we can go to a members house on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, without an investigator present and we need an investigator present any other day for meal appointments. Now we can go to a members house every day of the week with or without an investigator present. We got to go to Kieren's house and we real played the Plan of Salvation with him. Since he is a return missionary, we critiqued us on our teaching, it was really helpful.

Love Elder Westbrook

Week 28

Hello! 

We spent most our time on bikes this week. I got really tired of GQing in the city everyday for 3 transfers so I figured we should go GQ on our bikes, it has been pretty effective so far. This last week we probably spent 20-30 hours on our bikes riding and GQing. We have some lessons set up for this week from bike GQing. It is actually really fun riding around town. We get to explore the area more; something new everyday. 

This week is also exams week so most of our lessons were cancelled. Many of our investigators are students right now and have "busy" schedules.

Ryosuke has been reading the Book of Mormon pretty frequently now, and says really good prayers. We identified that he needs to know what the spirit feels like. He has been looking at these things very temporally instead of spiritually. We will help him this week with that.

I got to drive a car in Australia for the first time; it's super awkward when everything is backwards.

Other than that, nothing really exciting happened

Elder Westbrook

Story Bridge and some fun with the camera​

Week27

Hello all,

Turns out I am staying this transfer. It will be my fourth transfer here in the city. I was supposed to get transferred to Gold Coast but I guess they wanted Elder Morris to go instead. I'm will my uncle Elder Li again!! So excited to work with him this transfer. He is a really hard and dedicated worker of the Lord. 

Conor is still on his way to baptism. We haven't taught him the commandments yet but will be this week. Hopefully we will be able to work with him to help him with commandments. He believes everything we have taught him. All he needs is a testimony of the Book of Mormon. 

We weren't able meet with many investigators this week. Only Ryosuke and Conor. Ryosuke is from Japan and has been meeting with us these past weeks. He has progressed so much since the time we first met him, even though he doesn't quite see it yet. This week on Saturday we will be fasting with him for him to receive a spiritual witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I am so excited for him to gain a testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. This work is truly great.

Our GQing has been quite slow as well. We have only got 2 potentials these past few weeks. Hopefully with Elder Li things will start to change. I am ready for some more learning. 

It is starting to get warmer here in Australia... Summer in Australia is the time when all the Chinese students go back home. I heard it is super slow in the summer, But with the Lords help, anything is possible!

Elder Westbrook

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Pictures of the Chinese program and "the face you make when you get what you want for Christmas"​

Week 26

Hello all, 

Not much happened this week, haven't had lots of success finding. We figured we would try door knocking since GQing is probably isn't going to be any more effective. We knocked on this lady's door.. She had a "no salesman. Do not knock" sticker. We figured 1) we weren't salesman, we were missionaries, 2) we were going to use the doorbell instead. Here's basically how it went:

"Can't you read the sign?!! It says no salesman!"

"Oh sorry.. we're not salesman we are missionaries."

"You ARE salesman, you're selling me religion!! Your wasting my time! I put that sign on my door for a reason!  Where are you from?"\

"The United States...?"

"I know, I can tell by your accent, but where are you from? What group?"

"We're from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints."

"Alright, now I know who to complain to... I have your names already! Don't even bother telling me to have a good day cause you've already ruined it!"

" K Bye"

So after that my companion and I were just laughing our heads off because she was going to complain to our church. Made me wonder if our church headquarters has a customer service haha.

We have been teaching a guy named Conor. He is 18 and is a competitive javelin thrower. His family is devout Christian but don't belong to a denomination. I contacted him about 2 transfers ago but he was on his way to Germany for a competition, so we didn't get to teach him until this week. When we invited him to be baptized, he said he already believes everything that we taught. So we set a date with him for the first of October! We will be teaching him the Gospel of Jesus Christ today. 

Love Elder Westbrook

Sisters napping in the office, a Lambo, trade-offs with zone leader, coocoobera bird(don't know how they spell it)

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