Thank
you so much for the e-mail this week! I really loved all that
you included. First off, while it's still in my mind after reading the
letter, just wanted to say that is a great experience you had Aunt Terri
of meeting the lady from Melbourne on the plane and had a way to talk
about the church then. I'm sure there were some great seeds planted by
you! Well this past week flew by really fast! And before I talk about
it, I'll first mention one of the things that I forgot to mention last
e-mail that was probably one of the most significant things that
happened. We had the opportunity last Thursday to go to a Zone Meeting
in one of the areas in the Zone called Shepparton that was also the
purpose of us all being able to meet President and Sister Maxwell! So
that was very exciting to meet our new President who seems like he will
be a very good leader. He is a lot like President Lifferth in that he is
more soft-spoken and has a very loving spirit about him, which I think
will be a benefit to all the missionaries here. His
wife is a very bubbly person and seems very excited to be here as well.
We got to go in and meet each of them individually throughout the
meeting that day and I had a very good experience meeting both of them. I
asked President Maxwell at one point what it was like to be the son of
an apostle (which no doubt a lot of people had asked him) and his
response was essentially that he obviously thought of him just as 'Dad'
but did really appreciate the very good example he was for him and said
he can credit a lot of his attributes from seeing him work in the
church. In case you didn't know or I didn't mention it before, they are
just from good ol' Salt Lake City. So I'm very excited to be able to
work with them throughout the rest of my mission. It's kind of good that
the switch of mission presidents was about halfway through my mission
so I get the opportunity to know each of them well. Anyway, now that you
know about that bit of information, I'll move on to
this week. I think the best thing that happened this week would've been
just yesterday (Sunday) in the evening. Elder and Sister Laycock had
organized the first of monthly branch fireside meetings to be last
night, which is kind of the same format that they would do the mission
president firesides I would tell you about but much, much smaller haha.
So they just were going to hold them in their home (at least until there
were too many people coming and they had to move to a bigger location,
which would be great!) and do them every 1st Sunday of the month. The
theme for this one was on the sacred grove where Joseph Smith had the
first vision. They based it a lot off of a CES fireside given by Marvin
Jensen of the 70. Anyway, there were 13 people who actually attended
which was great, seeing as the Laycocks were only expecting 6 (which
included us and them haha), and 1 of those people was actually Coral. So
that was really good that she was able to come to
that and she said that she had a really good experience and the members
were great in making her feel comfortable and welcome. It was also good
that the really only young women (ages 21 and 23) in the branch where
there as well, and one of them actually was talking with Coral for 30
minutes outside of the house after the meeting had finished! So it was a
perfect opportunity for her to meet several of the members and develop
some friendships, and she's now very excited for church this next
Sunday. So she is probably doing the best out of those in our teaching
pool in the moment. Also, this past week we went to see one of the
less-active members we have been working with a lot with Elder Laycock
named Nathan. He was baptized several years ago but hasn't been to
church in quite some time. He is really, really shy but is a very nice
guy (in his late 20s or early 30s I think, my mind is blanking at the
moment) and always loves when we come around. And this
past week when we went to see him, which was about the 6th visit with
him since we've been here, he accepted the offer to be a home teacher!
We felt that was a huge miracle since he is as mentioned before really
shy, but also that it will hopefully be a big step in his reactivation.
Also at church was another one of the less-active members in the branch
that we visited recently with Elder Laycock as well which was great to
see. The thing that we have noticed with the Wangaratta branch is that
if every person that has attended since we've been here that is a member
of the branch, if they all attended on the same Sunday there would be
about 50 people. However, every single week there is something that
happens with several of the families (whether sickness, or traveling out
of town, etc.) so it ends up being just 30 or so each week. I guess it
is probably similar with all the wards as well, it's just you certainly
notice it a lot more when you are just in
a small branch haha. However, the work is really progressing well here
with the less-active members and we seen a fair few come back once or
more to church, so hopefully we can keep that going and strengthen the
branch more, especially since some of the core families will be leaving
before long for various reasons. We also have a couple of investigators
we are hope and praying will be able to come to church as well this next
Sunday (Coral included), so slowly but surely things are progressing.
Definitely quite a bit different from when we first got here, so the
Lord has been very generous in blessing us these past 7 weeks. Speaking
of 7 weeks, hard to believe that we are in the final week of the
transfer already! Time is just going by ridiculously fast, and of course
it will only start to go quicker and quicker as it gets further along
for me in mission. No official predictions from us on transfers at this
point because we don't want to create an
imbalance in nature that might come back and give us the opposite of
what we hope for or say haha. We find out Saturday though whether or not
we are staying or going. Anyway, I'm nearly out of time now but I got
through most of what I was hoping to say! I am always grateful for all
you do for me and all the love and prayers! I hope that you have another
fantastic week this week and that you continue to see the Lord's hand
actively in your life. I love you heaps and I'll talk to you again soon!
Love,
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