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

Another Day, Another Destiny - 11/25/13

So, this week has been a good one. The weather (while crummy this week) is going to get HOT by Wednesday. I'm mostly over a cold that I managed to get from my companion (side note: I know it's good to share, but sometimes I wish people wouldn't). Our awesome investigator came to church this week. We even got permission to go into the city to show her the International branch there. It was great to get to visit the ward where I served and know everyone. I'm likely to return there in the future as well.    A tender mercy of attending the branch this past Sunday, was that, while at the branch I had an investigator that said they wanted to join our choir. At the time, no one had even thought about a branch choir, but I didn't want to tell him we didn't have one, so I got to work talking to the branch music leader. She didn't really want to, and thought that too many people would join, but I insisted. I encouraged her nearly every week. My last week in the b...

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...

Spiritual Insights (9/2/13)

So, this week I had a little more time to study independently (and unlike other weeks, I remembered to bring my notes to the library) so today, my blog post is going to be mostly on how to answer the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Many people have asked this question, and many people have used it as grounds to disprove that there is a God. Don't let yourself get caught in that trap. God is real, he loves you! If you don't know it now, seek him out and I promise you will find him. In my studies, I have found a few scriptures that helped prove this in my mind. In Joseph Smith's adversity he was comforted by these words from the Lord, "My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;" (D&C 121:7) and was later counseled, " 7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if th...