""PRAISE THE LORDS CHURCH" " Week 36

So first off Joe got baptized this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It was so awesome! He is such a great guy! his baptism went great and was super fun. Afterwards we were changing and he said that he felt new. Then when we went back into the chapel he was asked to bear his testimony. He got up and he said "PRAISE THE LORDS CHURCH" pretty loudly and looked at all of us then he said it again "PRAISEEEEE THE LORDS CHURCH" and we all were just sitting there confused and he said "man are there no believers in this room? when i say praise the lords church i expect a amen!" then he said it again "PRAISE THE LORDS CHURCH" and we all said amen haha all of the Asians were just totally lost! but anyways Joe went on to give a super powerful talk he talked about how we met him and how as he learned from us that his life changed he said we would be life long friends. He is such a great man. He is from Kenya! so that makes the story make a little more sense haha. also a little background on joe is he is never on time for anything! he is always super late haha. And so on Sunday he was supposed to be confirmed but he didnt show up until like half way through sacrament meeting so for the first 30 min we were just worrying haha. He came though and we confirmed him and gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost! 

As far as the rest of the week goes not to much happened...... we had a couple awesome lessons with some new investigators and we are working hard. Lots of finding and what not im still losing weight and the weather is nice! We have no clue what to do for Pday haha everything in the city cost money and we barley have enough for food so we will probably just play some sports again or something. 

Oh some important things..... i found a piccachu one'sy last night in a closet haha it was a little small on me though. 

Life is great missions are awesome!!!!!!!!

A update on dawn...... So when we were meeting with her she had 2 weeks off from work but she started work again and she just works like crazy!!!!! so we havent seen her in a while we text and call though and stay in contact.  She reads the Book of Mormon everyday and prays and reads conference talks and is loving it she knows it is all true and wants to be baptized so bad. We just have to have her come to church. She is trying to find a way to make it happen! she is still doing awesome!

ummmmmmmmm oh ya we had a christmas in july party since it is winter here! it was fun we did a gift exchange and all that, they call it a chris-kringle here instead of a white elephant.

LOve you all

Elder White

 

So this is the place where parts of harry potter were filmed! this is that hall they walk down when they see snape i think

And that is the tree where mad eye moody turned malfoy into a ferret 

This is where harry did his first quidditch practice

this is that hall again they walk down a lot

This is the graffiti hall

An irish man playing the bag pipes

A view from the top of a building.......How did we get up therre??

Our flat is just to the right of that church in the bottom right corner or the picture

theyt have pretty random stickers in the city so i take some haha this was on a sign somewhere

Some missionary put this in my preach my gospel haha i was flipping through it one day and it fell out the sticky note says "elder white is the"

​this is my kngaroo onsie hahaSo....Conner didn't send this out with his mass email, only to me, but I couldn't resist sharing!!  We asked about the piccachoo onesie and he said he didn't have a picture, but he sent this:)

"I love being a missionary even when it is hard" Week 35

Sooooooooooooo this week was a hard week. Heavenly Father really tried our faith this week and it was a hard time for me. But we know its what God wants and he will bless us if we stay strong!!!!

So here is the shortened version of the story. We had 2 investigators who were on date to be baptized this week and next week. and at the beginning of this week they vanished. We would call them and it went straight to voicemail they didnt show up to any of our appointments and just really dropped off the face of the earth. It was hard because it was both of them on the same day and we had grown to care about them so much. So we fasted and prayed and worked so hard to find a way to get in contact with them. Then on sunday night we had been fasting and we were closing our fast at like 9 ish. we had decided that morning that if we didnt make contact by the end of the day we would have to drop them. (meaning stop meeting with them and drop the dates). we fasted all day and nothing happened. so as i was praying to close our fast i said basically "thy will be done" and we ended the prayer. Like ten seconds later our phone buzzed over and over. We looked at eachother and i smiled and got our hopes up one more time. And It was both of them texting us at the same time and this is what in essence they both said. "i am so sorry my phone stopped working at monday and it just barley got fixed we had crazy things come up that made us not be able to come to church or our appointments! we have been reading the scriptures everyday and praying and we know this is true......" We both looked at eachother and started yelling and hugging and doing random stupid things haha. It was a miracle! 2 people had the same thing happen to both of them at the same time and then they both texted us at the same time. It was so hard not to get depressed and just give up during the week. Our 2 top invesigators had disappeared. Also the school semesters just ended here and like all of our investigators had to go back home for a couple of months. So we really felt like we were back to ground zero. all week we would go out talking to people all day for like 8 hours and we didnt find a single person who was interested. It was a trial of our faith. But we worked hard and didnt give up and God blessed us so much for it.

Also yesterday we had a pretty funny experience so i have been learning chinese from Elder Xhu since i have been in the city and i have gotten pretty good at it. We were out finding and i saw this giant group of chinese tourist. We went up and began talking to them and they just ignored us. then i said a couple things to them in chinese and they all flipped out! it was crazy all of them started yelling and taking selfies with me and taking pictures and all that i was like famous or something! it was so funny it went on for like 7 min! im in with the asians haha.

Another cool thing i saw was we were at the University of Sydney and we walked into this one part of it and i was like -this looks familiar and we were trying to figure out why and we realized it was hogwarts from harry potter! i guess a good chunk of scenes were filmed there! (we had the senior couples google it) i will go back and take some pictures.

its been a good week. I went to the temple today and that was awesome like always. I love being a missionary even when it is hard. 

Love you all heaps! 

Elder White

"There is Nowhere I'd Rather Be...." week 34

So this week has been a great week also! So for a update on our investigators...... Joe the one from Africa is doing awesome he is totally ready for the 25th of July to be baptized. Its amazing to see the changes he has made. This week we taught him the word of wisdom in one lesson and the law of Chasity in the other. He eagerly accepted both and completely left his old life behind. He is a great guy and we are so excited for him.

Dawn is doing amazing. She loves this Gospel i wish i could send you all some of the texts she sends us. She reads the book of mormon every morning and night and a couple chapters each time and she takes notes and applies what she learns into her life. She accepted the baptism day of August 1st. She said that since she has meet us she has grown so much closer to God and can feel the Spirit so much more. She said dhe cant even imagine how much better it will b once she is baptized. 

We have found heaps of other investigators this week to. We found 23 people who want to learn more of our message. Since we cant teach them all we have been giving them to other missionary's to teach but it doesn't really matter who teaches them because it not even us really teaching its the Spirit. So far 11 of them are going to be baptized this month and next month. 

Its interesting being here in the city were there is so much wickedness and still finding so many people who want to learn more about God and who are just so prepared.

We had a cool experience this week. So we decided to pray for where we should go finding. I was prompted to go to Liverpool street and my companion was prompted to go to George street so we were kinda confused. So we were looking at a map and trying to decide where to go and we noticed that Liverpool street and George street intersect. So we decided to go there and work that area basically. We spent all day going around and talking to people near there. Near 8pm we decided to call it and went to go eat dinner. As we started to walk away a man stopped us and said i have been watching you for quite a while from my office up there and pointed to a building near by. he said you look like you are looking for someone and my companion said we were. The man then said i think you are looking for me. Will you teach me about God? We were kinda taken back. We said yes definitely and pulled out our planners and set up a appointment. He came and we taught him the restoration. He is going to be baptized on august 8th! Miracles are real! the Lord blesses us after the trial of our faith!

We have seen so many miracles here. Even though we have been spit on a couple times yelled at chased around(saturday nights are crazy haha) and rejected more than i can count i know that this work is true. There is nowhere i would rather be. 

"Come what may and Love it"

                                Joseph B. Wirthlin

Love you all heaps! Elder White

 SO this is Dawn our investigator! and for the record my arm isnt around her its in my pocket you just cant see it!!!!! But she is awesome!

This is our english class. Wefinished with a game of charades and grabbed one of the elders walking buy and made him do one! he had to be a bull rider haha.

"Nothing in this world can or will shake me from this testimony. He lives." Week 33

So this week has been amazing!!!!!!!! I love my mission so much.

So i will start off with our miracle day. Our miracle day was on thursday. And it was crazy awesome. So we went out at ten right after companion study to do some finding (we call it miracle time). And as we were walking we heard a pop noise and this tour buses tyre (thats how they spell tire here) blew out. So he pulled over and everyone got out and just walked away except for a couple of the asians and the bus driver who was also a small asian man. I looked at my companion and nodded my head towards them and he was like sure. So we went over and offered our help.  We assumed he said yes and began to find where the jack was and all that. So we got it and first off did the rookie mistake of jacking it up first (which took us like 20 min because of the angle and all that) and then going to loosen the lug nuts off. We reealized quickly we had to lower it back down first haha, anyways we could not get them off i was jumping on the bar thing kicking it but they were just way on there. It was funny though because the asians that had stayed were like cheerleaders they were yelling and oooohing and ahhhing haha. It almost reminded me of ninja warrior like the commentator guys haha.  So we helped him call a company and apoligized that we couldnt do more and carried on. but i think we were blessed for the attempted service if anything it set the mood for the rest of our day. 

SO the first miracle has to be Dawn. She is from the cook islands. We saw her walking and just kinda went up and walked with her and began to talk. She said she had a friend that had just left on his mission and she was curious of what it was. So we began talking about what we do and we asked if she would be interested in sitting with us some time and learning more. She said yes definetly! So we asked for her number and she was like ohhh my phone is dead. so in my mind i was thinking she may not actually want to learn and all that and then she said lets walk down to the apple store and i will charge it so i can give you my number. So we went down and eventually got her number. We texted her that night and she asked if we could meet the next morning so we set up a appointment and met with her. We taught the restoration and it was so awesome. Not that our teaching was awesome but she had been so prepared. She soaked it all in and we had given her a pamphlet and she pulled itout and had marked it and taken notes and she asked for a book of mormon before we even brought it up because she wanted to read it and pray about it. She asked about Joseph Smith and the book of mormon. I told her i knew they were true and she said how. And so i bore my testimony on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Then my companion did and she looked at us and said wow thats awesome. She said that she believes this. So we asked her to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. And she said yes that she would love to. So we began to talk later about what she had thought when we first walked up to her and this is what she said. She said she had been praying for a couple weeks for God to show her which church was true she said she had been trying them all out and just didnt know and that none of them felt right. Then we had started talking to her. She said that after we had left all she wanted to do was meet us again. she was so excited to learn more and had felt like this was the answer to her prayer. She said that she felt like this was true and this was the one for her. After the lesson we gave her a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon. We gave her alma chapter 32 and a hour later she texted us and she had already read it and taken notes and she loved it! she said she loved how it testified of Christ and helped her with her faith. We also had left her with a plan of salvation pamphlet for our next lesson and she texted us last night and said that it was exactly what she needed and was bringing so much comfort into her life. We are seeing her in 2 hours actually for another lesson and we are going to set her on date to be baptixed for august 1st.

The other miracles were we were able to find 3 new investigators that day and we had a deal thingy going that if we find 3 new investigators in one day we get to buy ourselves ben and jerys ice cream which is super expensive here. like 6 bucks for 5 bites haha so we just went with a big tub of low quality stuff.

 im just loving my mission and i couldnt be happier. I know this church is the true church of God on the earth today. I know the Book of Mormon is true with all my heart and i know that Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. I know our Savior lives. I know angels still administer to us in this day. I know the heavens arent closed. Nothing in this world can or will shake me from this testimony. He lives.

this is the only picture i have this week, its from fhe last monday. They couldnt move eachothers arms for like 10 min. then they just gave up haha

Love you all,

Elder White