Story Time=Long Email
新年快乐！恭喜发财！红包拿来！恭喜恭喜！Happy Chinese new year everyone! I hope everyone is having a great start to the lunar new year. Fun times all around. This week was another crazy busy week filled with all sorts of adventures!
Australian things:
-I live on a street called Barr Smith and he was a famous Australian scientist!
-There are some traditional Southern Australian food delicacies….I had a good car ride with an Australian and so he knew some of the traditional Australian food.
-The AB- We have chips on the bottom, then kabob meat on top of the chips with garlic sauce, tomato sauce (ketchup), BBQ sauce on top of everything…
-The Pie Floater- This is Pie and Ham soup with a meat pie in the middle of it floating…hence the name.
-The Frog cake- It is a cake that is supposed to be in the shape of a frog and it has a unique hard to describe taste…
-Sausage roll- very traditional food- puffed pastry with sausage meat in the middle.
-Now for a very traditional kids birthday party food….It is called Fairy bread. It consists of white bread with margarine on it, and then multi-colored sprinkles which are called hundred and thousands on top.
-Then there are the classic meat pies and veggies pies that Australians eat by the mouthfuls haha.
-And finally the snags- Sausages, bread, fried onion, and ketchup/BBQ sauce. They love BBQ sauce and ketchup!
-There is no such thing as Mexican food in Australia :(
-And the last thing to know about Australian food is that an entrée in Australia is an appetizer…
Hope you enjoyed learning about traditional Australian food today!
Alright let's get into the fun week:
-There was a massive flock of pink parrots near our flat drinking water! They were so beautiful and loud! Sometimes I can't believe I am in Australia!
-We ran an exchange and I was with this new missionary from Samoa! He was cool, but didn't speak much English haha.
-On Tuesday we had a street preacher come up to us and ask us some questions and I testified of the truth and he ended up coming to the branch and learning more right then and there! It was crazy! We had a hour long sit down lesson with this random street preacher we pulled off the street haha. And the whole conversation we had with him on the street was filmed by the tv station because the reporter was right in front of us haha. I think we are on the news a lot more than we think haha.
-We had Jason come in for a random lesson and then we had a branch council and oh how I love our branch council! They are so fun and make me laugh! Good people all trying to progress the work but all with different ideas on how to do that.
-Friday was an interesting day. We had a great zone stewardship council meeting over zoom and so that was great! We had a long hot day of finding. It was kinda depressing at some points haha. We didn't get much action or success until the last 20 minutes of the day…and wow it was a crazy 20 minutes. We see a guy sitting on a bench. He gives us a head nod so we walk over and say hi and we get talking and we find out that he actually moved to Adelaide from Brisbane and is a basketball player in the division right below pro in Australia NBL. So we talked basketball for a minute and then got onto the topic of church and we got his number and he wants to come to church because he doesn't know where his church is and so he will come to our church! He wants to change his life around. He just got baptized in another church haha, but that won't stop us from rebaptizing him with the proper authority! And then while we were laughing and talking about basketball he suddenly says “watch out!” to me. I then have both of my copies of the Book of Mormon that I was holding at my side violently hit out of my hands and they go flying to the ground. There is this crazy drunk lady swearing and yelling and she gets right up in our faces and tells us that we Jehovah Witnesses weren't there for her father and balalalala….it was kinda crazy. I didn't really like getting all the Jehovah Witnesses hate, but anyways she looked like she was ready to murder one of us haha. And then she got up in the basketball player’s face and he was like “please get out of my face.” Then she started trash talking us and then he told her that she actually needs us and to stop everything and then his buddy said, “stop bothering these guys…they are good people.” She kept yelling and swearing and shaking her fist at us as I picked up the copies of the book of Mormon. Then we just ignored her and she finally left. Then I had this 16 year old girl come up to me and start asking me all about revelations in the bible and questions about the Book of Mormon and everything and then she finally left…kinda a crazy 20 minutes aye?!
-Saturday was also a really crazy weird day: After lunch my companionship and another companionship were headed out to find new people to teach in Rundle mall! The thing is you never know what will happen when you walk out of our little building and Saturday was no exception. We walked out of the branch building and BOOM all the crazy bible people with their hellfire damnation signs and crosses and you name it were camped outside the building next to the cross walk. They see us walk out and no joke all their faces light up with an evil grin and like wolves to the sheep they came! It was the most hilarious thing ever. Just watching them see us walk out and then they all jump into action and start coming toward us and yelling all sorts of things about us and to us and hell and the Book of Mormon being a false book and balalalala. We couldn't go around them, under them, or over them, so we went straight through them. I was half expecting to get punched haha…but I walked through them making my way to some fresh air and yelling over all of them telling them to have a nice day and good afternoon and thank you and thank you again and I just kept walking, They kinda followed us, but after 30 seconds they gave up the chase. All the other missionaries were with me and they walked behind me with the biggest grin and smirk on their faces as I totally blew off all the bible basher crazy out-of-their-mind people. I am notorious for not giving them a second to waste my time! I can't have them wasting my time when I could be finding a soul to save haha. These missionaries were newer and hadn't seen me in action with the crazy hellfire bible people and so they were laughing! But the fact that they were outside our building, and then when they saw us they all, no joke, got excited to yell and fight us haha.
-Then about 10 minutes later we got stuck in a conversation with three 25 year old Aussie blokes who ended up trying to convince us that we were wrong and that we were not going to be saved. I won’t go into the details, but it was a pretty funny conversation and I called them out on some things!
-Then we had some teenage girls come up to us and take pictures with us and loved that we were Americans. So many people have heard about our church, but don't know anything more than a random fact or two. It is so funny sometimes to hear what people know or think they know.
-We had games night and wow a member brought the best food I have had since getting to Australia! True Mexican food he had made! It was divine and a tender mercy after a long week!
Spiritual thought:
William James, a famous author and psychologist, had this quote to offer:
Sow a thought, and you reap an act;
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
Helaman 14:30 “30 And now remember, remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free.
31 He hath given unto you that ye might know good from evil, and he hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death; and ye can do good and be restored unto that which is good, or have that which is good restored unto you; or ye can do evil, and have that which is evil restored unto you”
…….you reap what you sow…..
Where is your treasure?!? Treasures can be many things. But what is your true deep down treasure? What does your mind and heart treasure?
There are many treasures in the world…what one do you value or treasure the most?
Let us look at some scriptural insights…
Helaman 5:8 it states “...lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not away; yea, that ye may have that precious gift of eternal life, which we have reason to suppose hath been given to our fathers….
Lay up treasures in heaven…sounds very intriguing!
Matthew 6 :19 ¶ Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Eternal treasures are the best because they are of eternal worth and they will last forever! The duration of eternity (Enos 1:23) is a long time…like a wise woman I know once said…eternity is the wrong thing to be wrong about or the right thing to be right about…
And I love verse 21….where your treasure is, there will your heart be also….what you consider your utmost precious treasure, that is where your heart will also be….and remember the Lord looketh upon the heart and not the outward appearance (1st Samuel 16:7). There is no deceiving the Lord! He asks for all our heart, might, mind, and strength because it requires all of our souls! He wants our heart! He wants to be our treasure!
D/C 6:7 Seek not for riches but for wisdom, and behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto you, and then shall you be made rich. Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich.
If you want to be rich, then do the things necessary to have eternal life! We are investing in our eternities right now! The decisions we make have consequences. Even eternal consequences! We must look past our little world and have an eternal perspective. We must broaden our horizons and widen our view of the world and our purpose here on earth. Then and only then will you know what you should treasure the most!
2 Nephi 9:30 “...their hearts are upon their treasures; wherefore, their treasure is their god. And behold, their treasure shall perish with them also.”
Please consider the wise words of the prophet Jacob…don't let your something become your god….only let God be your God!
And if past prophet’s testimonies aren't enough, let's look at modern revelation from our beloved Prophet President Nelson:
“As you think celestial, you will find yourself avoiding anything that robs you of your agency. Any addiction—be it gaming, gambling, debt, drugs, alcohol, anger, pornography, sex, or even food—offends God. Why? Because your obsession becomes your god. You look to it rather than to Him for solace…Please do not let an obsession rob you of your freedom to follow God’s fabulous plan.”
There are many things in this world that are competing for our attention. Everything wants us to place our hearts on them or it…our heart is a very special thing. When our heart treasures something it affects everything. Don't let something small or insignificant in this life rob you of the eternal treasure of eternal life!
I invite everyone to make sure their heart is on the correct treasures. Place your affections upon the Lord! And let your heart and mind treasure up the words of eternal life. As you treasure what is most important and valuable eternally, I promise that you will find ultimate peace, satisfaction, joy, happiness, and treasure now and for eternity!
Unrelated topic, but felt like I should include these quotes to end the email!
Elder Orson F. Whitney (1855–1931) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught that everything we experience teaches us valuable lessons: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven”
Mosiah 24:13–15. “They Did Submit Cheerfully and with Patience to All the Will of the Lord” If we are entirely dependent upon God, then He can take our limitations and our weaknesses and magnify them into strengths useful for His divine purposes. Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles encouraged us to cheerfully rely on the Lord when we face the challenges of mortality: “Problems or trials in our lives need to be viewed in the perspective of scriptural doctrine. Otherwise they can easily overtake our vision, absorb our energy, and deprive us of the joy and beauty the Lord intends us to receive here on earth. Some people are like rocks thrown into a sea of problems. They are drowned by them. Be a cork. When submerged in a problem, fight to be free to bob up to serve again with happiness. … “The Lord is intent on your personal growth and development. That progress is accelerated when you willingly allow Him to lead you through every growth experience you encounter, whether initially it be to your individual liking or not. When you trust in the Lord, when you are willing to let your heart and your mind be centered in His will, when you ask to be led by the Spirit to do His will, you are assured of the greatest happiness along the way and the most fulfilling attainment from this mortal experience. If you question everything you are asked to do, or dig in your heels at every unpleasant challenge, you make it harder for the Lord to bless you.”
I read this talk and I was prompted by the spirit to put it in this email…so if anyone needs some extra support and strength and encouragement in your life or church duties please read this talk….
https://speeches.byu.edu/
Photos: can you find me in action? The other Elders took selfies with us in the background…
Have a wonderfully splendid week! Keep on pushing through February! Almost halfway through! Love you all and miss you all!
-Cheers,
-Elder Jones (zhang zhanglao)
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