Kiwis

Kia ora!

It's becoming more and more apparent that when you serve a mission in Australia, you also get to experience the culture of several other countries. Most noticeably, New Zealand. We've met a Ton of Kiwis up here in Karratha.

This week has seen some obstacles but some blessings as well!

We tried to go over to visit with Jake again, but his friends had some bad news. Details aside, he's moved out to somewhere else. However, he might soon be moving to the same street that we live on... We really want to get in touch with him again! He was so interested in learning!

We have another high point as well: We were going through our area book, and found a former investigator named Carlo. We felt that we should go and meet him, see if he was interested in meeting again. When we went over, he was tired, but let us in. He told us that he'd been meeting with the missionaries a few times before, but that he'd been very busy with work (manager at a local restaurant). We asked him a few more questions, and discovered that he had a desire to be baptised! We committed him right then! He's still a bit busy with work, but we're going to help him as much as we can, and make sure he's prepared. :) Exciting! The March on March has begun. Things are happening!

Yesterday, Sunday, Sister Pilkington approached us after church and said, "Elders, I have someone for you to teach." (This is the part where I was jumping up and down in my head.) Ok!

Sister Pilkington has a friend, whose son began asking her questions like "who was Jesus?" This led to a conversation with Sis. Pilkington, and she invited her friend to meet with some missionaries, who can help answer those questions. The friend said "ok, sure." Hooray! So we're going to go over to meet the family soon.

We had a few new faces at church yesterday, as well. A Korean man walked in just before it started; he's a member from korea, and just came over to WA to work for a year. He's learning English. It was awesome to see many of the branch come over and greet him. One of the families invited him over for FHE.

In a couple of weeks, President Lindsay and one of his counselors, President Websdane, will be coming up to Karratha for a couple of days.

And so that's my week :) It's becoming very evident that sincere faith, combined with prayer, and a lot of hard work, come together to bring blessings.

Love to you all!

Elder Reeder

Are you happy? Notify your face.

Just one of many things that were told to us by Elder Pearson.

So, I'm back up in Karratha. Apologies for not being able to write last week, by the time the plane landed and we got back home, we ran out of time.

Training was awesome, though! Sunday afternoon we flew down to Perth, and stayed the night with some other elders. Most of Monday, we were at the chapel, listening and receiving training from Elder Kevin Pearson, of the Seventy. Prior to his address, President Lindsay told us that it would be a "Pivotal point for the mission." I'm sure that every participant in that meeting received revelation and inspiration on things that we could improve, needed to change, etc. in the way we are doing our work. Also, another cool lesson: Faith comes from obedience. When we obey a principle, we receive a blessing, which strengthens our testimony of that principle. (D&C 130:20-21) So if we're continually and consistently obedient to the gospel, it will continually and consistently lead to an increase of our faith.

Coming up, the mission will be having a "March on March." We're putting our faith, And all our efforts, into setting a new standard for the mission. Elder Richmond and I are in a zone now, and our zone has been praying and asking for a baptismal goal to work towards. We're certain that if we can give it our all, we can achieve this new goal.

Last week, we found a new investigator! His name is Jake. We prayed before we went tracting, for help in bringing us to some one's door who was prepared to hear the gospel. Every door we knocked turned us down, or didn't open, until the very last one. It was already open, and Jake invited us in, right then and there, to talk with him! This week, when we went by, we were able to meet his friends that he lived with, as well. They had some questions too, and Jake had a referral of another friend who lives nearby! This was a wonderful blessing, that we really needed.

The branch is really beginning to focus on their missionary work as well. The mission leader is creating a meal roster, so that we can meet with the members more often at their homes. They'll be focusing on inviting a friend along to join them, that we can meet :)

What else happened these last few weeks... We had another "cyclone." (cloudy day)

So, yep. That's my week. As we were doing our weekly planning, we felt positive about this upcoming week.

Love,

Elder Reeder

This Week

Hello, everyone. Another week has gone by in Australia.

This week has been very slow. Elder Richmond and I spent most of it tracting again.

The rest of the Tupou family that was moving to Sydney finished packing. We went and gave Brother Tupou a hand with moving, painting, and general cleaning-up. It was actually pretty cool, he and his wife were very happy with all the help. His mum came over from Sydney as well, to keep an eye on things while they were on the road. She's a very strong member, and she's been bringing one of the daughters, Mclynn, to sacrament meeting, YSA activities, etc. Mclynn's getting back into things too :)

We received some cool news from the mission office, however: Elder Pearson, from the Quorom of the Seventy, is coming to tour the mission, and meet with missionaries. Cool! Guess what that means?

If you guessed that means I decided to have a smoothie for lunch, you were wrong. (well, sort of.)

This weekend, Elder Richmond and I will, once again, be boarding a plane, headed to Perth. Awesome!

So that's my week, all of it. We're hoping things will start happening again shortly. This weekend is also Australia Day. The branch is having another water slide and barbecue down in Dampier. Elder Richmond is organising a touch rugby game as well, that we've invited people to.

Hope you're all well :) Happy Monday!

Love, Elder Reeder

20

Hello everybody! This has been another one of those weeks :) Thursday-Saturday, we had a Cyclone!

It was really cool. Cyclone Norella was a Category 4 storm that formed north of Australia, and started heading down the coast. It wasn't a direct hit on Karratha by any means, but we saw the edges! Elder Richmond and I were tracting on the far end of our area, most of the day on Friday. Very very windy. And then it rained. Oh my, did it rain. And they all laughed when I brought my rain jacket! (except I left my rain jacket back at home that day, so it wasn't much good.) Karratha has no drainage system, so all the water just stays on the streets. When cars drive by, we got splashed. Elder Richmond and I even went swimming in the ocean! (Not really, the cyclone brought the ocean raining down on us. Seriously.) Brother Clarke loves to track them as they go by, and kept us updated on whether or not it would become serious.

I got the worst sunburn during all that rain. Can't figure out how...

It was beautiful weather outside, other than that! The rain really cooled things down for a few days.

Other than that, It's been a pretty normal week. Elder Richmond and I are starting to hit a wall. Right now, we've got 2 investigators we're teaching. The Tupou's finished moving away Saturday. They've started meeting with the missionaries in Sydney, so that's good, at least. As for us, we're spending most of our daytime hours knocking on doors that were knocked on a few months ago. When we follow up on potentials, they seem to keep falling through. *sigh* This is another part of missionary work, I suppose. A hard part. We're trying to stay focused, keeping diligent, finding ways to work, etc. A couple of members in the branch might have referrals for us, so...

Optimism! that's the key :) And perseverance.

Hey! I'm 20! What a surprise! We'd told a couple people in the branch, but they forgot. Oh well. Elder Richmond and I decided to make a cake for it. So, we got our cake mix all mixed up, and then tried to start the oven, which runs on gas. Nothing happens. Tried the stove, same thing. Our flat is connected to two big tanks out the back. Turns out that the first was empty. And the spare was empty too. So we had ice cream instead. And hopefully they'll send a new tank for us soon. What a birthday XD Oh, and then President Lindsay and family called and sang :)

And that's pretty much my week. Supposedly there's another cyclone forming up north, which would be cool.

Seriously, that last one was awesome, I don't care what everyone here thought (it was lame?).

Hope you're all well, and enjoying the >2 Feet of Snow! Lucky.

Love,

Elder Reeder

A whole new year

G'day, family! Today is January 7th, and it is the year 2013! Can you believe it. Elder Richmond and I celebrated at 10:00 by drinking some sort of egg-nog. But I'm sure the rest of the world was up until midnight having lots of fun outside. (Tip from a family here: Sparkler bombs are really fun.) Tuesday evening, We went out to Dampier to a branch activity. They put on a water slide for everyone. It was Awesome. We didn't go on it (we're missionaries) but we were able to meet a lot of nonmembers there too! Afterwards, we went to Brother Alvarez's home for dinner (Brother Alvarez is Tahitian.)

So we've been having some interesting times up here this week. We've found that all but one of the Tupou children, who we're teaching and preparing to be baptised, moved to Sydney. A bit sudden.

Seeing as how many other people still aren't available, Elder Richmond and I have been trying different finding ideas.

One; We've been doing service for some different people around the area. We got a call from a senior couple up in Port Hedland (600Kms away) that a member and her son were moving down to Karratha. Cool. So we got her address and offered to help her out. We're going by tonight :) Her son isn't a member yet. So there's potential :) The whole branch is getting excited, because there are 3 families moving into the area this coming month.

We've also started teaching English! There is a member from Thailand, whose daughter doesn't yet speak English fluently. We decided to help her out the best we could. We're reading from The Book of Mormon with her.

Also, hopefully, at some point we can get a car up here, to work in the rest of our area. Brother Otto, our branch mission leader, took us on a drive all the way out to Roeburne, Point Sampson, and Wickham. These are all towns in our area, reachable only by car. Very beautiful on the coast. Very isolated. We were shown a random 2" blue hose running by the side of the road. "That's the town's water supply," said Brother Otto.

Cyclone season has officially started. We've gotten some very very VERY hot days, mixed in with a lot of clouds. And one short, intense cloudburst. Fun!

Aaand, so that's been my week. I'm very grateful for A/C. When it works. And sunscreen.

I love you all! Hope you're enjoying the wintery weather!

Elder Reeder

New Years approaching

Hello! Today is the last time I will be writing in 2012. A new year is approaching!

The remainder of the last week was pretty cool. Friday morning, Elder Pasina and I jumped on a plane and travelled down to Perth, to have some specialised training from President Lindsay, as well as to attend the temple.

President had some really good training, as well as some announcements!

Seeing as how the mission age has been lowered, February will see 16 new missionaries in the Perth Australia mission! Of those 16, all but 3 are sisters. March will see 12 new missionaries as well.

Where are they all going to go? (This will mean new areas opening up.)

Our mission, for the next few months, will be focusing on knowing all the doctrines of the 4 missionary lessons. To do that, we've been practicing teaching, for example, the Plan of Salvation, in 4 minutes, including all the major points, explaining clearly, and leaving a commitment. (Note: This doesn't mean we're going to be speed-teaching people from now on. This will help us to be able to know the teachings and be able to help people understand even better what's being taught.) It was cool. Right afterwards, we went to the temple. I love going there.

Then, Elder Pasina and I went to spend the night with some other missionaries. We met our new companions there! Elder Pasina will be companions with another missionary until the actual transfers day. As for me, my new companion is Elder Richmond. Elder Richmond is from Tahiti, and he speaks French! He's pretty cool. We're going to have fun together.

I've noticed that I've gotten a new companion Every Single Transfer. Hmm.

We flew up the next day, back to Karratha. Yesterday, (Sunday) we both gave talks in sacrament meeting. Elder Richmond afterwards met a member of the branch, who is also Tahitian! They spent the next little while talking in french, while I pretended to understand what was going on. It was fun. It really cheered up the member, because he's missed speaking in his language for a long time.

So that's been my week. People start coming back from holidays now, so we're expecting a good week :)

Also, we've been told it's Cyclone season! Haha, Elder Richmond actually came at the perfect time, because for the past couple of days, there's been one just off the coast. Really cooled things down to a nice 30C. But I'm excited, apparently they're pretty common, and people are starting to prepare (ie. tying down their houses, boats, dogs, etc. )

Love you all!

Elder Reeder

We all survived!

Everybody! Merry Christmas! (Oh yeah, and we all survived Dec. 21, too.)

I got to call the family! It was so great to be able to talk to everyone, and hear all your voices :) Unfortunately, the phone cut out right at the end.

So, here's a written-down version of my week. Karratha, as we came to find out, becomes a literal ghost town the week of Christmas. We spent one day knocking on doors, and I think 5 answered. However, we were able to get in to see Brother Tupou and his family! (Brother Tupou is a member, but his children aren't yet.) We've picked them up as investigators and began teaching them on Saturday. They are a really fun family to teach. They're also moving to Sydney later in January, so...

Monday was Christmas Eve! We were invited by President Pilkington (Branch president) and his family over for dinner. We had a great time. President has a lot of instruments at his house, but doesn't know how to play many of them. He asked if I played anything. (Why yes I do. Clarinet.) And he had one! And requested that I try it out, and make sure that it works. (By all means, if you insist.) Christmas day! We woke up. I thought, oh, yay, it's Christmas! Elder Pasina called his family in Tonga, got to talk to them. I opened the door to look outside and decided that someone had forgotten to order the "white" for the season. This is the first Christmas I've spent with the A/C on :D

We were invited over to a family's house for lunch, the Clarkes. I love that family as well. We had turkey and potatoes and stuffing and "fizzy drink" (soda). We chilled for a little while on the couches, and played a couple rounds of Uno with them. Unexpectedly, they gave us a gift! Chocolate and a gift card :)

So, overall, it's been a very nice Christmas. I miss getting together with the family back home, but it was nice up here as well :)

Today is Boxing day. (No, I haven't boxed yet.)

Tomorrow, is pretty much the only Normal day this week! Friday, Elder Pasina and I get to fly down to Perth, for some special mission training, and to go to the temple! Then, Saturday, I come back up. With another missionary. Elder Pasina's being transferred! We got a call a while back, telling us. He's being transferred 2 weeks early, to somewhere (unknown), with someone (unknown also) as his companion. I'll be up here still, with someone else (Also unknown also). We don't know all the reasons behind it, but the earliness has to do with the cost of plane tickets back and forth. (saving money.)

So! That's going to be fun. Even better, this new missionary who I'll be with will be giving a talk this Sunday in Sacrament Meeting. Whee! It's going to be great.

We're excited for the next few weeks, though. That's when everyone who's left town for the holidays is supposed to get back. And that means our investigators as well!

I love you all, and again, I loved being able to call :) Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Elder Reeder