Spring has Sprung

The grass is ris..(our grass has definitely "ris.") I wonder where the flowers is?

Yep, so it's another week here in Greenmount, WA, and it's turning to Spring! Our lawn needs a mow. (but someone else takes care of it, apparently.)

It's been a good week here, especially during the weekend!

Elder Swoboda and I were able to meet with Virginia and her family again on Thursday. We shared the Plan of Salvation with them, and they really enjoyed it. They asked a LOT of questions, and ended up asking us to teach them about the 10 commandments as well :D We also found out that there is another member family living there! They all came to church this Sunday, the whole household. It was amazing to see, they took up a whole row in the back. It was the first time they'd been to church in 15+ years, and they really felt the spirit as they attended. They're definitely solid, and very committed to coming back to activity.

Sunday night, we had a "Cottage Evening" at our ward mission leader's house. It was a wonderful night, mostly socialising and food, and we shared a short spiritual message as well. The purpose of them is to help investigators and less-active members make friends with the members, get to know one another better. Purpose accomplished. They really help the work along. We're hoping to have them about once a month.

Teresa is doing great as well! We weren't able to see her during the week, due to her busy schedule, but the sister missionaries ran into her, and had a good chat. She mentioned that she knows that the adversary has been working on her, and she's been having a lot of trials, but she feels that she just needs to go ahead and be baptised, sooner rather than later. We're going to set a new date with her this week :) She is so awesome.

Saturday was fun. So, in the US, the youth have a program known as Especially for Youth, aka EFY. It's fun! However, out here, due to bizarre legal complications, they just changed the name this year. For a while it was going to be known as SMYC (Special Multi-stake Youth Conference), but now it's called FSY (For the Strength of Youth). Needless to say, it's caused the ward a lot of confusion in remembering the letters. ("We're getting ready for the, uh, EFS...SYCM...QZX...")

Anyway. So in order to raise funds for the upcoming FSY, the ward had a quiz night/auction. It was fun! There were tons of nonmembers there as well, and everyone was trying to outbid each other on things such as a blender, labor hire, and tickets for the corporate box at the Perth Wildcats stadium. (Oooh.)

The YSA won a chocolate fountain table, and invited us over. Delicious. Everyone had a great time, and raised enough funds for all the youth to go.

I love this ward, everybody's so awesome, and they're friendly with Anyone!

This week I'm doing District meeting. President Lindsay called and asked if he could join in. Ah. Ok.

It'll be cool.

Hey, guess what? Today is the 26th of August.

I have 6 months left.

IT'S INSANE.

Goes by very fast indeed :)

I love you all! Have a wonderful, fun-filled week! and for those of you back in school, welcome back ;)

Love,

Elder Reeder

A miracle

Hi all,

This week went really well!

Wednesday, we had a special fast with Teresa, to help her out. She really had a good experience with it, and when she came to church on Sunday, she seemed a lot happier and less stressed. :) We'll be meeting with her this week, when she's off work.

Another small miracle that happened this week started Last sunday, actually. The sisters got a call from a less-active member in the ward. She'd been working with another family for a short time now, and they wanted to have missionaries come over! They turned out to live in our area, so we got the referral. We were on splits with the zone leaders on Saturday, and so me and Elder Hall went by to try and meet them and invite them to church. Unfortunately, only the husband was home, but we gave him our number. They called back later and set up an appointment for after church on Sunday.

Elder Swoboda and I went by after church, not sure exactly what to expect. We rocked up, and the whole family! came in to sit with us in the front room. Turns out that the mother was a member, and her daughter. They'd been less-active for many years. The daughter's two brothers and her husband weren't members. But the cool part- The daughter's been thinking for a while now, that they all should make church a part of their lives again. They really want their kids to grow up with that kind of standards as well :) Her husband, who used to be catholic, wants to learn about the church as well. We taught them about the restoration, and committed them all to read the book of mormon and to pray about it. They'll be at church this sunday as well! I was so excited about it. 3 new investigators, right there.

So that's my miracle report for this week. It's week four of the transfer already! It's gone rather quickly.

I love you all, and I hope you're all doing well! I heard there was a fire on the mountain again? Wow.

-Elder Reeder

There is a green hill far away

Hi, everyone! Elder Reeder here, with another weekly report.

It's been another up-and-down week here in Greenmount. It's a very hilly place. hahaha!

It's also been hilly with our investigators as well. We're working very hard with Teresa. She's not golden. More like Platinum. We had a lesson with her on Wednesday night, and she asked us, "What's the next step for me?" Well of course, baptism, so we reset a date for her, August 17th. We were so excited! She was excited! Her family was giving her grief for a while, but she told us that she'd had some confirmations to her, through prayer, and a dream, to just go ahead with it. Yay! We also had dinner at a member's house, with her and her daughter Madison, who's 18. Madison really opened up to the members, and to us, and we're hoping that she'll follow her mum's example as well.

Unfortunately, something came up, and we've had to postpone the date. Teresa's going through a very difficult challenge at the moment, and she can't get away from it. We went over Sunday afternoon and talked with her about it, and then gave her a blessing to help her. She wants to move forward.

We've also been working with the ward, in finding part-member families. There are a couple in our area that we're hoping to make contact with this week. We want to help bring them back to church :)

Friday was really fun. We had a district leader's training meeting, at the mission home. It was great, and we all received some very good training and counsel on helping our district. I also found out that my trainer, Elder Kerr, goes home in one more transfer! ITS CRAZY! I can't believe it. Time flies.

Well, I love you all, and I hope you're all having a good week!

Love,

Elder Reeder

The Mountains of Green

Hi there, everybody! It's been a pretty good week, here in Greenmount. It's the closest I'll probably ever officially be to the mission office :D

It's also very close to the airport, but nobody'd better be thinking of that right now.

Greenmount is really nice. And, like its name, is very green and very mountainous (relative). We're on bikes, and so now I'm really giving the gears a workout :D We've got a couple of awesome investigators, too! One is named Teresa. She's of italian heritage. She works at the library that we use for our emails. Teresa is going to get baptised soon. She has read the book of mormon, and Knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that it's true. I feel awed at her level of conversion. She is not feeling just that it's something good for her to do, she knows she Needs it and very much wants to make it a part of her life. It's awesome. Opposition is always a player, it seems, though, and her family isn't happy with it. The ward has been very supportive and encouraging, and we're certain that she'll be all right.

My district is very small! It's me and elder Swoboda, Sister Jeffrey and Sister Billy, and the zone leaders. So. Small district meetings, methinks. But they're all good missionaries. Sister Billy is fresh from Micronesia, from an island called Chuuk (pronounced Took). (For those of you who remember one of my other companions, Elder Naruo, she's from the same place as him. They know each other. Small world hahaha!)

Elder Swoboda is from Adelaide. He's been out about 6 months. We actually met about 6 months ago during a mission conference, and neither of us had any idea we'd be serving together. Cool.

Yup, so the work continues here in Perth, Australia. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers :)

Love to you all!

Elder Reeder

Everywhere at Once

AAAAAAAH!

Sorry, that's what's going on in my head right now, because today, a lot of things are happening at once.

So Elder Fowdy and I have been spending this past week up here in Noranda! Basically, we've been temporary caretakers of the area, because the previous missionaries here went home a bit early. It's been an interesting experience. Unfortunately, the flat and area book weren't left in Stellar condition... (couldn't Find the area book at first.) So it's been quite the adventure picking up the pieces. Zone meeting was fun. Nobody seems to know what's been happening in regards to these shifts.

Also of news this week is that we had interviews from our mission President. President Lindsay missed us down in Bunbury, due to our early departure, but he came by our flat Friday night to interview me and Elder Fowdy. I like having interviews with President. He's really trying hard to help every missionary in WA, and trying to make this mission better than ever.

Sunday, at church, a lady comes up to me: "Are you from Logan, UT?" No, but nearish. "Well, you're related to me!" Oh! Are you related to Brother Hancey?(Another member in Perth) Turns out they're cousins. So I've yet to work this out, (but this wonderful lady is going to bring a copy of her family history chart), but guess what, Reeders? We've got aussies in our family! At least I hope so. That would be Epic.

Elder Fowdy and I spent Sunday night with the Ellenbrook elders. Nobody knows when transfer calls is supposed to happen, because it keeps changing. So suddenly people start getting calls this morning. I've yet to receive any word on what's happening. All we know is that we'll in all probability be going somewhere else. In the meantime, I log in to email today and the whole world appears to have emailed me. Or family, at least. I love my family :)

So that's the story this week. In weather news, this week has been incredibly rainy.

Hopefully we'll find out what's going on soon and we'll be able to get back into the swing of things!

I love you all, and hope you're having a good week. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers :)

Elder Reeder

Upside Down

G'day, folks. What a week, down here in Auz!

The work's been continuing at a slow pace. Elder Fowdy and I have been having a good time going out to Collie with a member, brother Van Dijk, who is the elder's quorom president. We're organising some activities to try and help bring the members there out of the woodwork, bring them back into contact with the rest of the ward. Everyone's feeling positive about it.

Tuesday, we had a dinner appointment with an older couple in the ward. While talking with them, they told us they've been on 3 missions as a senior couple! And the husband was on the temple presidency for a while, too. It was really cool to get to know them.

So, the big news of the week: As of 3pm, we will no longer be in Leschenault! Short explanation: President Lindsay is doing some shuffling around in preparation for Transfers next week. So, Elder Fowdy and I are being doubled out, to spend this week up in Noranda, in Perth. Noranda is about 2km from the mission home. Wow! A bit sudden. I'll miss a lot of the members down here, seeing as how I already knew half of them and their families from other areas. Noranda, coincidentally, is a part of Elder Fowdy's first area, so he knows many of the people there :D After this week, we're not sure what's going to happen.

So that's my crazy week. I hope you're all doing well, what with thunderstorms back home, etc.

IT IS FREEZING DOWN HERE. Like 5C at night! Lucky for us we have a heater. and jackets.

Love you all!

Elder Reeder

P.S. Just forgot to add an update about our super amazingly awesome newspaper article, that was to be published in the local paper!

We were so excited. It was going to be great! A short article about the missionaries here in Bunbury, what we do, offering service, etc. and a picture of us all. Woot!

Here's what ended up: A 1" x 2" paragraph of text, without a picture, about Elder Fowdy, from the UK, doing voluntary service as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

But hey! We got a couple comments from members.

Good Morning Australia

Hello, and welcome to this week's installment of "Missionary: Australia!"

Guess what? Our article's getting published in the paper! This week, The Bunbury Mail will have an article about the missionaries here in Bunbury (10 of us), that will go out to the 80,000 people in the paper's distribution area. We didn't get to write the article ourselves, it was written by a reporter, but it's from information that we gave him.

We're looking forward to seeing what happens with it, and we've been talking about it with many of the ward members here in Leschenault Ward, encouraging them to share it with their friends.

We also had an awesome zone conference this last Friday! President came down, along with the assistants, and two elders from up in Butler (furthermost north point in the city of Perth) to give us some aweosme training on making the most of our planning. It'll help us in the future in helping investigators progress. Heh, there was a bit of a fun side to it, as during the practice sessions, we planned to help investigators such as Frodo Baggins, the Malfoy Family, and Bruce Wayne, come to church, etc.

The rest of this week has mostly consisted of finding finding finding. :)

In an interesting turn of events I have made some discoveries this past week, such as cousin Micah Wood, in Armenia, was companions for a short time with my companion's best friend!

So yeah, fun :)

Thanks for tuning in, sorry it's such a short email. It was a short-email type week.

I love you all! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers :)

Love,

Elder Reeder