"...Man you guys teach eternal life here! " Week 32

So this week was a great week! So in the city if you arent teaching someone you are out on the street talking to people. im gonna give you all a little back ground on how working in the city works. So we dont go to peoples flats and teach them and there are pretty much 0 homes like houses type homes here. So anyone we meet we have them meet us at where the chapel is. The chapel is on the second floor of a massive apartment building. And the first floor is where the teaching center is. The teaching center is where we do all our teaching. Its just a couple rooms set up for us to teach in. Its alot different than any other area. Also like i said earlier like 90% of the people here are from asia. And 95% of the people here are students. Its always interesting walking out on the streets. You get people who will run up and try to steal your badge you get creepy people following you and always see random things happening haha. I love it though!  

So we found 5 new investigators this week and its has been awesome. We have a investigator from Kenya named Jo and we set him on date to be baptized on july 25th. We have a couple other investigators who have said they will be baptized but we havent set a date yet! the work here is exploding like crazy and its just so fun. We talk to so many people each day. Its crazy! I have lost all fear of talking to strangers haha.

So the other night we were walking through Hyde park and we saw a guy sitting on a bench so we went over and started talking to him. We asked what his name was and he was like John the baptist and we were like there is no way thats crazy! and he pulled out his passport and showed us and it was literally john the baptist. So we stated to teach him and i pulled out a restoration pamphlet and showed him the picture on the front and i said so this is a picture of Jesus Christ.... And he was like whoa how did you guys get a picture of him was he like here or something? and i was just like whattttttttt and then he started laughing and said sorry that was a bad joke! i totally thought he was serious because back in west virginia i had someone ask me that same question but he was dead serious haha. 

Also one morning we were walking through a park and there was this random guy just peeing in front of everyone haha... only in the city.

So with our lesson with jo i will tell you a little bit about it. So the first one we taught the restoration. As we were teaching it the Spirit was so strong as we shared the first vision with him and showed him a picture of Joseph Smith seeing Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We invited him to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. He was quiet for a moment and then said i have no other choice, this is all true i can feel it, what you are teaching is true. i have to be baptized. And then Nirosh who is a member from kenya to that was there said straight up brotha do it for Jesus and they did this high 5 thing and it was so random and funny haha. But then next time we taught him the plan of salvation and he said man you guys teach eternal life here! he said it all made sense and so we set him on date for july 25th! im so excited for him!

So we were walking down the street the other night and this random guy stopped us and said he wanted to follow Jesus and change his life so were like ok we can help with that! so we got his number and set up a appointment for tommorow morning at the tc (teaching center) he showed up and he wanted to see the chapel so we went to go up the stairs and he took like two steps and started getting super worried and said he couldnt do it because he was scared of hights! i was like whattttttttt but we took the elavator and it was al good haha. It was just random. 

Well its been a good week i love you all!

Feeding the birds in the morning

they have massive trees here

I finally went to the opera house!

 We saw a seal

 Thats the sydney harbour bridge

​they dont have root beer in the stores here anywhere... But a member hooked us up. it was amazing haha

 the 2 on the left are our investigators the one on the right is a member. they are awesome and progressing towards baptism

They do a firework show every saturday night

"....We Are Smashing the Work" week 31

So this was a short week since i emailed on Tuesday last week but i still have some good stories to tell! So the city is pretty crazy and pretty awesome. I love it here. 

Sooooo one funny thing that happened this week is there was this ancient Asian lady walking down the street and i said hi to her and she just started smiling and grabbed my hand and was kissing it and all that and when i finally got my hand back we asked her how things were going and she said they were going good and then she started singing as loud as she could. she sung the first few words in like every christian song i have ever heard. and then she asked us to sing with her so we sang in the middle of hundreds of people with this old lady haha. She was awesome. We got a picture with her i will send. 

So the other morning i put the sugar out for the parrot bird things and went to do my studies. like 45 min. into our personal study the parrot things sounded way louder than normal so we went out of our study room and there was like 20 of these birds in our flat just flying (and pooping) everywhere! i had forgotten to close the window! man it was crazy trying to get them all out of there haha. 

On the more spiritual side of things though i love it here. We just walk around all day and talk to people on the streets. We stand on boxes and talk to a whole crowd we talk to people sitting on benches we talk to people at stop lights we talk to people as we are walking. I just love it! Most of them are never interested but it so worth it when you find the one that is. We are working with some less active members and we haven't been able to meet with any of our investigators yet because its finals right now so they are all crazy busy because everyone in Sydney is a student pretty much. but finals end this week so the work should start to pick up again. And it has been raining since i got here but it has finally stopped! 

We taught English class on Thursday and it was hilarious! So i teach the beginners class while my companion teaches the intermediate class. So on Thursday we were teaching about animals and there names. So i would right the name of a animal on the board and they would all try to say it and i would help them and then i would make the sound it makes and they would all make it back and it was just so funny to watch. Then there was a really awkward experience .... So we went around the room and each person said there favorite animal and i would kinda talk about each one after. It got to this one Indian man and he said "cow" as his favorite and i was like ya cows are awesome we get beef and milk and ribs and all this good stuff from cows and he kinda looked angry and said he was a vegetarian. I was like oh cool. and we moved on. I didn't realize till later that Indian people worship cows!!!! i felt so bad! so i had to go and apologize to him after my class was over. 

Anyways its all going good here. My companion is great and we are smashing the work. 

Love you all heaps

Elder White

P.S.: we ran into some members from California the other day and they said im totally getting a Australian accent so boooooo ya!

The City "...it was scary at first but i felt the strength and the power and authority of my calling step in..." Week 30

Hello everyone! I have been transfered to the city. So i am right by the opera house and all that and man this place is crazy! there are just thousands of people all around me! We teach english classes once a week and we just go around and talk to people on the street. Our chapel is one of the floors in a giant sky scraper and the floor above it is called the teaching center! its where we tell people we talk to to meet us for there lessons! its pretty cool. we dont go and talk to people in there flats or homes they come meet us. Another cool thing is its a YSA ward so it will be a new experience! i will miss families though....mostly the little kids haha. they appreciate my magic skills! 

So we had a really cool experience! We were out walking around and we felt like we should try soap boxing! So we went and found a crate and went to a busy corner and i stood up on it and had a book of Mormon in my hand. with a loud voice introduced myself and began to bear my testimony of our Savior and the book of mormon. There were hundreds of people all around me and it was scary at first but i felt the strength and the power and authority of my calling step in and i was filled with courage. Some people laughed others yelled at us and swore at us, but some listened and when the walk signal came they didnt all leave. So i began to teach the restoration and i bore my testimony and stepped down. My companion got up and he answered any questions they had. It was a empowering and amazing experience. we have many people we are meeting to teach more who we will see later this week.

The city is almost overwhelming! there are so mant people and buildings and its just like nothing i have ever been around before we live in a tiny little flat with another set of elders. We literally dont get a single meal appointment ever because the ysa dont have any money. So they say missionarys here lose lots of weight. I love it though. Most of the people here are asians and have never even heard of Jesus Christ. i love it though because they are so willing to learn. I am gonna have to get used to this new way of doing things but im more than happy to do it.

The last couple of days in my previous area were hard ones. it was sad to leave those people. There were some people i had grown very close to. But it was nice cause i had breakfast lunch and dinner appointments the last couple days haha. 

Oh and also something super rad happened in my last area we saw two massive kangaroos in this field fighting! They were punching and kicking and all that stuff! i got a sweet video of it. 

I love you all

Elder White

Elder White

"I love being a missionary so much"....week 29

SO this week has been a great and marvelously wonderful week. We saw many miracles. Transfers are coming up! we find out in 2 days if we are being transferred or not! im not sure how I feel about it all. I do and don't want to get transferred! But on to the miracles!

So one day elder lewis and I were going to the train station to go to a part of our area to tract. When the train showed up we were about to get on but I got a prompting we shouldn't. and even though the next train would not come for like 35 min we stayed. We started walking around to figure out why we needed to be there still and we saw a lady sitting on the bench. We went and began to talk to her and we soon found out that she was very new to Christianity and loved it so much. We began to teach her very simply what we believe and it turned into a great discussion. We offered her a Book of Momon and she excepted it. She was genuinely interested and then her train came and she had to rush off before we could get any contact info. We were really mad at ourselves for not giving her a way to contact us. the next day we prayed we would be able to find her again. We went tracting for most of the day and felt inspired to walk down a certain street it was pitch black because there were no street lamps and it was 8:30pm. We were half way down this little alley/street thing and a door opened and someone was letting a friend or something out of their house and then we heard "HEY I KNOW YOU" and we looked over and the lady we had talked to at the train station was right there! We hurried over and began to talk to her and got her phone number and all that! THe Lord led us right to them! 

Another miracle is we were out walking one night and we were out in this one suburb when a couple guys saw us and started yelling at us and then came running at us shouting threats and things like that. (im only telling this one because of the great outcome) So we took off running but all of the sudden my companion who weighs maybe a 120 pounds stops and turns around. I was like elder lets go, now! but he just stood there I ran back to him but he wouldn't come.  my companion just yelled to them what do you want? and they all stopped yelling and came up to us. I was ready for a fight or something I wasn't really sure all I knew is that these were massive islanders. But my companion just said look we are just missionaries for Jesus Christ we are sorry if we have offended you in any way. And they said ahh man I love Jesus and shook his hand. We started talking to them and 30 min later they hugged us and apologized and went there way! I asked my companion later why he had stopped and he just said I felt it would all be ok. God was protecting us. My companion knew who was protecting him. It was a great lesson to me because I was the whole time preparing to rely on my own strength. But my small thin companion was not afraid. it was a amazing learning experience for me. 

Another miracle was we were able to find so many new investigators this week. People are opening their doors to us and are ready to receive the gospel message! 

I love being a missionary so much. its such a great experience!

Also our flat is falling apart! water started pouring through the ceiling and our bathroom floor is caveing in! its all rotted underneath the carpet and all this great stuff so we will move out for a week so it can be fixed!

​we also got to go to the temple! it was such a great experience!