Skip to main content

Australia week 1

So, A lot has happened in the week and a half it's been since I wrote last. I'm no longer in the Bronx, but my visa came and I am writing from Australia. Funny story...
So I had been working with some investigators and such, and was having a fair bit of success. The people in the Bronx were amazing, and I loved them. My companion and trainer, Elder Fuller had been steadily increasing the amount of work, we had been slowly but surely increasing the numbers for the area, and we were starting to see some real growth in our investigators. Then, as I was out getting lunch after the district meeting on Monday, I was at the Checkers off Fordham near the church, and I got a call from Sister Dennison who worked in the mission office. She informed me that my visa had arrived and that I needed to get my things ready because my flight left at 6 PMthat afternoon. This call was received around 2 PM. Due to the international nature of the flight, I needed to be at the airport by 4 with an hour long drive from the Bronx to JFK. I'm sure you can imagine my surprise that I had a little less than an hour to prepare my things and get ready to go to Australia. After getting the call, I waited for my food to come, ran over to a cee and cee department store, bought a suitcase, ran back to the church to pick up my backpack and say good bye to the rest of our zone, and ran home with 30 minutes to pack...
At the time that all of this was going on, I literally could not feel anything. It was a whole range of emotions. I was excited to get to go to Australia, but incredibly sad and upset to be leaving the wonderful ward and people that I was serving. Especially without the opportunity or time for proper goodbyes or even any goodbyes at all. Nevertheless, I made it to the airport on time, made my flight, and began my 28 hour journey to the Land Down Under. The flight was mostly uneventful. Long. The plane was late getting to Sydney and I had to catch a later flight to Melbourne, but all was well. I made it unharmed, unless you count exhaustion... I was so very tired.
I found out that the preferred method of finding here is street contacting and talking to new people. Given the fact that I have an extreme and uncontrollable fear of new people, it is a challenge, and has been a challenge, and I'm expecting it to continue to be a challenge for a long time...
So this week has been filled with mixed emotion. My excitement that I had at the MTC to come to Australia has been replaced by a feeling of unfinished business in the Kingsbridge 2nd ward in the Bronx. But I'm trusting that God knows what he's doing, and that I am where I am because that's where I'm supposed to be. 

Popular posts from this blog

week almost 5

Well everyone, it's the end of week 4. Saturday is my halfway mark in the MTC, and things have leveled for me emotionally, I've become much more comfortable with Vietnamese, the obedience is much easier, and life in general is a lot less dramatic. For this, I am grateful. I still have the best companion at the MTC. Life here is so routine it's hard to tell one day from the next. Days are long, weeks are short. I've heard many people say it, and it's true. The days can be long and exhausting, and then you get to a Sunday and you're thinking, wait, what happened to the other 6 days. I'm definitely grateful that I get to be at the MTC for 9 weeks. There are a lot of things I needed to grow up about, and a lot of humilty that I needed to learn. I'm not perfect, I probably won't be perfect, but I've realized that I can't always be right, even though I am (^_-). Sometimes I just have to accept the fact that other people have other opinion...

my feelings

The rest of my mission can be summed up through reading my posts sent via email. The purpose of this post is to sum up some of my final feelings and bring some closure in my mind to the events that led to me finishing my mission early. Earlier today I read a blog post by another missionary who served in the same mission that I did. She went through a similar experience. She was so open and honest, and through her display of courage, I figured that I could do the same. (Her post can be found HERE ) To provide a short disclaimer, the things expressed in this post are entirely my own thoughts based on my own knowledge and experiences. They may not always be accurate because I don't know everything, and I would encourage anyone and everyone to investigate and form their own conclusions. In August of 2013, 5 months after I left on my mission, an ugly beast that had plagued me most of my life, decided to manifest itself in the most forward and unavoidable way. For most of my ...

End of a Transfer, End of an Era (8-12-13)

So, I'm officially done with my 12 week training. I've now been in two areas, Kingsbridge 2nd Ward in the Bronx, NY, and Footscray, VIC Australia. And I've been informed that I'm getting transferred to a new area tomorrow. :) You'll find out next week. Now just as all things, there has been some good, and some less good. The good news is that I'm healthy, energized, and out of the funk, so I'm pumped to be a missionary! Whoo Yeah! The less good news (not bad news) is that the baptism for Sunday was postponed until the 23rd. It was easier for all parties involved. So as a way of recording, since I am the absolute worst at Journal writing, I'm going to summarize the last 8 weeks here in Melbourne. So I arrived very tired and don't really remember the first three or four days. I met a lot of people, had serious jet lag, and slept a lot. Then it got better. Here, they call street contacting GQ'ing. When we are GQ'ing, I...