29 Lessons This Week!

Howdy all!

Well, it’s been a great week here in the down under. We taught 29 lessons this week. The most of my whole mission. We found another 2 new investigators, and had six investigators at church this week! That’s been really great! There was a bit of a Saratov approach deal that went down with one of the new investigators. We found him outside on the street and got a return appointment with him. The appointment fell when I had exchanges with the zone leaders so one of the zone leaders went with Elder Peleuale. This man is a sihk, so he wears a turban and had a different accent (Indian, but when you’re scared like the zone leader was, you just let your imagination get the best of you). He invited them into his house, and when he did, he grabbed thier hand with both hands. His family were all just around the corner, so the zone leader was pretty freaked out at this point. As it turns out, he uses both hands to shake because one of his hands is recovering from a surgery and is still pretty weak. I went to go see him later in the week after hearing the whole story about how they were almost kidnapped, and he’s a really nice guy. When we tried to bring him to church, he said that he’d follow us. He ended up in front of us, and panicked because he though he lost us so he was speeding to try to “catch up” with us, and we were trying to get his attention from behind. We eventually got his attention and we made it to church.

Things with my companion are starting to go south. It’s not that we don’t get along, it’s just that because this is his last week, he mostly just wants to cruise it out. It’s just one more week I’ll have to keep pushing him though. Then something new. I really hope this transfer I’ll be able to put everything into just working hard and getting the work done.

Alright, time for some questions!

So what is your new member’s name and is his daughter still on schedule to be baptized? Who will do it? John Dias. His daughter is getting baptized next week by him, but the sisters in the ward have been teaching her.

I’m surprised you have a car with so many missionaries in the ward. Do you have a very large area? Decently large. Our area isn’t really supposed to have a car I don’t think. They didn’t before I got here. I think that my companion asked for it for his last transfer and he got it. I think after he goes home, the car will go somewhere else.

What is the public transportation like in Canberra? I haven’t taken it, but they do have a lot of bus stations.

What ward is it that you are serving in? Belconnen.

What is Canberra like? It’s pretty quiet and suburban. I like that a lot more than Sydney. It’s just nicer.

I’m beginning to picture Australia as a country mostly of Polynesians. Are there just tons, or have you just happened to be put with them often? Well, that’s kind of an interesting question. There are a decent amount of Polynesians, but it’s certainly not a majority. It may just seem that way because most of the members here are Polynesians. White Australians usually aren’t religious, where the Polynesians are. Especially for our church. We teach a lot of Polynesians that way too. The islanders have a lot of respect for missionaries, even if you are of a different faith. Polynesian culture is kept very strong wherever they are, and so even non-member Polynesians are decently open to us.

There were a lot of Polynesians in Paramatta too, right? Heaps. And in Minto as well. I guess maybe to continue from my last point, Australia is to the Islands what America is to a lot of Latin America. It’s just much more economically stable here, there are more jobs, better education, better pay, ect. It attracts a lot of the islanders for those sorts of reasons, it’s really hard to make a living in the islands, so they just go where they can support themselves and their families.

Have you been able to meet again with the investigator that you stalked and chased down? Well, they weren’t interested, so they never gave us details or anything, but we asked them if they knew anyone we could teach anyway because that was part of the promise we had been given by President Pearson.

Well, love you all. Have a great week!

-Elder Shelton


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