Baptizing Brisbane: Week 4 Charters Towers -- Having fun while doing the Lord's work

This week was a pretty normal missionary week. We did lots of finding and service for the members. They are still feeding us really good and taking really good care of us. If I had to pick between Ayr and Charters Towers I would pick Charters Towers. For the people that don't know, every two weeks we switch back and forth between the two towns because they are so small. It does make it hard to keep up with people and packing everything gets annoying but it is Australia so I am not complaining.

Charters Towers is full of big hills and we are on bikes. So we are always having a good time going up big hills. Being part of a biking area is fun. I used to ride my bike back home all the time so for me it is like going and having fun while doing the Lord’s work. The Lord’s work is fun too, but even more fun on a bike. Sometimes when we ride past people they tell us to do a wheelie. Little do they know I am really good at them. It is so funny to see the look on their face when I pop up and ride down the rode in my shirt and tie doing a wheelie. It gets them laughing and they love it. Who would have thought that would come in handy.

We had a really cool miracle during the week. My companion wanted to go out for lunch but I am a poor missionary so I didn't want to spend money but I said sure we can go. As I was locking up my bike a lady came up to me and said, “Hey I know you. You’re a missionary.” I was shocked that she knew us. She had them come over to her house in Africa and she loved them. She invited us over for dinner that night. So we headed over for dinner later that day. She had cooked food for us but not for her family so as we were eating, Regina and Becky (the mom and daughter) just watched us eat. It was a little awkward but they were really nice and said we could teach them a lesson. Since I am the new guy I got to teach it. So we started teaching about The Plan of Salvation. They had told us they were scared what would happen after we die. During the lesson we could see Satan trying to stop us. He would have distraction come up, loud noises, mosquitoes. There were a lot of things happening that were trying to keep us from teaching, but we were good and we were able to teach with the spirit and ask questions that really made them think. The lesson went really really good and I felt prompted to ask Becky to pray for us. She said she didn't know how, so we taught her and she said she would try. Her prayer was actually really amazing and after she looked at us with a really confused face and said, “Wow I felt something while saying that prayer.” PERFECT!!!! We testified of the Holy Ghost and told her more about how she can know these things are true by asking and the Holy Ghost will let her know if they are true. So when we go back to Charters Towers in 2 weeks we will challenge her to be baptized. We are in Ayr now but we are going to try and keep in touch with them. The don't have any word of wisdom problems so once we teach them more we have really high hopes for them to be baptized soon.

This last Sunday we got to watch some of conference during sacrament meeting and we had 14 people show up!! It was amazing. We got one investigator there and lots of less actives. It was such a good meeting and General Conference was great!! We had people saying, “Wow that talk was just for me.” So we were really happy to see people feel lots of love. There was a lunch after and everyone caught up with all the new and less active people. Everybody was just having such a good time and the president said this was amazing. There have not been that many people for 10 years. It is usually 3-6 people. With missionaries there the people are really excited and helpful to grow and support each other. I played with the two young men and the one primary girl. We did the water bottle flip trick thing and talked and had fun getting to know each other. They love the missionaries and want to come finding with us.

We had to say goodbye to them because we had to go back to Ayr. So we packed our bags and the Van Dongens drove us to Ayr. Being a missionary you don’t get to nap or take any time to rest except for us. haha Best mission ever. Since we have a 3 hour drive to Ayr we get to sleep all we want. I guess it is only a 3 hour nap every two weeks but still I need that sleep! They dropped us off and we had to say goodbye to them because their mission is over. They head home to Utah next week. They want to visit my family so I am excited for them to meet my parents and siblings.

During the week we locked ourselves out of our flat. I asked my comp if he had the key? Ya...closed the door... wait no.... So I looked around the chapel for an open window and had to crawl in though a tiny window to get the key so we could get back in. What a blessing for that open window.

It was quiet the week for me. I hope all is well back home.

Love you guys.