ANOTHER BAPTISM

March 27, 2011 Sunday

Today Yingping was baptized into the church. We started teaching her when we were in the Como ward when we first came down from Broome. After we were moved over here to the Thornlie Ward, we taught her one more time and then handed her over to the elders with whom we had traded wards. They were able to find another Mandarin speaking girl in that ward to fellowship her. And they were finally able to commit her to baptism. We were so surprised when she asked Orson to perform the baptism. And I was asked to give the talk about baptism. So this morning we went to all three meetings at the Como Ward and then the baptism. There was a good crowd because they held it a half an hour after church ended. A fellow from Africa (Sierra Leone) who has helped fellowship Yingping spoke about faith and gave a great talk. The Relief Society president spoke about the Holy Ghost. It was fun to go back to the Como Ward. We were only there 3 weeks but got acquainted with some really great folks over there. We see them often at the temple because they are temple workers too. By the way, almost all the temple workers here have a regular ward calling as well as their temple assignment. The seminary teacher here in Thornlie and the RS president in Como are both temple workers; so even the big callings are no excuse for not being a temple worker!
We invited Yingping and Maud over for dinner tonight before they went to a CES fireside. We found out that Yingping is 27 and Maud is 29. Maud is from Taiwan and has been a member for 12 years. She first got acquainted with the church from elders who were teaching English classes. She’s only been in Australia about a year, but her English is really good because she spent a year in the states traveling to St. George, SLC, Idaho, and Washington and staying with families of missionaries she has known in Taiwan. She’s planning a 3 month trip to South America beginning in May.
A funny note: the recently returned missionary who taught the investigator class today spoke with barely an Australian accent. She’d served on temple square and found that people had a hard time understanding her “Australian” so she worked hard to learn an American accent while she was there. Who would’ve thought that would be necessary? But when we get home and introduce ourselves as “The Pohtas who served in Australyer,” do you think people will notice?
Yingping & Maud
Orson, Yingping, & Marilyn
Elder Kent, Yingping, Elder Able

FIFI

March 26, 2011 Saturday

We received a referral from the mission office for a girl named Fifi. We were told she had attended church twice in our building, but nobody had talked to her. So Tuesday night she went to the church. Tuesday is when institute is held and she was welcomed. They discovered she wasn’t a member, so they got her information and notified us. When we called her, she was ready to set up a time for us to teach her. She preferred being taught at the church. We found out she lives on a street behind the Thornlie chapel.
So she met us there this afternoon. Talk about a cute girl. She’s from Indonesia and has been in Australia just 3 months. She’s studying to be something like a veterinarian assistant. It’s a 3 year course. She’s living with a friend of a cousin or something like that. But she said she walks past the church everyday on the way to the bus stop and decided she wants to learn about it. Her father is Buddhist and her mother is Catholic. She and her siblings were sent to a Christian school, but she’s not affiliated with any certain church although she does know quite a bit about Christianity. We talked to her about the reason for religion and the differences between Christianity and Buddhism. We talked about prophets and dispensations then started to tell her about Joseph Smith when she said she had been told about him on Tuesday night and had been shown The Restoration DVD. So we started in on the Book of Mormon and she said she’d been given one of those on Tuesday, too. Boy, whoever talked to her didn’t waste any time! She promised to read the Restoration pamphlet and the Joseph Smith pamphlet and to come to church tomorrow. She is delightful to talk to and has the cutest smile. We won’t be at church tomorrow because of Yingping’s baptism at the Como Ward, so we arranged for the ward mission leader, Scott Mortly to meet her and help her feel at home.
While we were tracting this morning, we found a 17 year old girl named Esther who told us she’s been wanting to come to our church. We invited her out tomorrow explaining we won’t be there and then called Scott to tell him to watch out for her also.
Tonight we visited Brother Mark Smith. He’s 87 and lives alone in kind of a retirement village. Talk about a sharp guy. He was baptized 58 years ago and has had “every calling except Relief Society president” to quote him. He and his wife served 3 missions; he’s been a bishop, branch president, seminary teacher and patriarch. He loves to build models, especially airplanes “to keep me off the streets.” We had a great visit with him. It’s members like that who help a missionary want to keep going even when the work is hard and the great results of missionary work seem few and far between.

LORI MANNING

A close-up
Marilyn and Lori
Lori and Orson. Lori is the sweet member of the church who lost her voice to one of the 7 cancers she has had. She is so cheerful, it's amazing. I wish everyone could meet her.

A BAPTISM :o)

Tai with his cousins, Jezza and Tahlya
Sonny (left) baptized Tai(right
March 24, 2011 Thursday

Today was a payday. For the first time in our mission we were able to see someone we had worked with baptized. What a blessing! Heavenly Father must have felt sorry for us so he sent us Faafetai Valeni. We call him Tai (tie). He’d already had the lessons and a testimony. All we had to do was review them with him. Today was his 19th birthday and he chose it for his baptism. His Samoan/New Zealand family members that he lives with provided all the speakers, musical numbers, etc., and it was a beautiful program. When the bishop was welcoming him, he had a couple of young returned missionaries in the audience come up and bear their testimonies also. It was great. His cousin, Sauniuni (Sonny) Faatoia, baptized him. After he was baptized, they stood there in the font and hugged each other. We are so grateful to have been here when Tai came so we could get to know him.
Yingping, the Chinese girl we taught in Como, also showed up for the baptism. She is being baptized on Sunday, and everyone was very friendly and excited for her. She found out our bishop’s wife teaches English so they are getting together tomorrow to help Yingping in her preparations for her next try at the citizenship test. It’s so fun to watch Yingping. She just makes herself at home with any crowd she happens to find herself in.
Today we visited Benny Van Huizen. He is a former investigator from a year ago whom we visited last week and convinced him to let us come over and talk to him about the Book of Mormon. He’s from South Africa. It’s so interesting: we’ve worked with 4 South Africans and all of them have never let us even talk to their spouses or children. Benny listened and dialogued with us, but he couldn’t seem to get past the fact that he is “comfortable” in the church he was raised in (The Reformed Church). We testified to him on many things. He said he’d talk to his wife and decide whether they’d let us come back.
Andrew, the Buddhist we tracted out last week, called and told us not to come today. We just happened to run into the Chans a little later who live just down the street from Andrew, so we asked them to drop by and visit with Andrew and his familyto see if they can convince them to listen to the discussions.

The Dewitts

TWO IN FOUR DAYS?

March 22, 2011 Tuesday

Tai is scheduled to be baptized on Thursday. Late this afternoon the elders in the Como Ward called to say that Yingping wants Orson to baptize her on Sunday. We are excited. We thought for sure she’d want one of the elders to do it, but we were wrong. It’s been a long time since he’s done a convert baptism. What a blessing it is to be here in Perth.
Tonight we taught James again. His son Jay was there. We asked him how he liked church when he attended. He said, “Well, I think I’ll start off coming once a month and then work in from there.” Wahoo! At ward council later, we requested that the YSA kids start fellowshipping him. There was a YSA rep there so I think it will happen. James gave a beautiful prayer at the end of the lesson too.
Last night we went to the mission home for FHE and dinner. Sister Cahoon had made her traditional Chinese dinner that she does every December for about 60 of their closest friends. It included orange chicken, gingered beef, beef chow mien, and peachy prawns. It was all excellent! We had a good time. Brother Nielson gave a lesson on scriptures. Somehow we ended up discussing lineage. Cahoons said that among their children, there are 2 from Mannasah and one from Dan. Nielsons have one from Dan. Sister Kruger said her son’s lineage is Naphtali. We were blown away. Our family is just the tribe of Ephraim—how boring!

I READ A LOT!

Yingping & Marilyn
March 20, 2011 Sunday

This evening, Yingping called and asked if she could come over. It’s about a half hour drive from her place over to here. She has a GPS and so she’s fine with driving around in the dark in places she’s never been. When she got here, she had 10 magazine articles that she wanted one of us to read into her phone so she can listen to them and improve her reading skills and hopefully her writing skills by listening to the sentence patterns. They were about all kinds of subjects from the environment to the economics of the infrastructure of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. So for an hour and a half I read while she held her phone about 1-2 inches from my mouth. She was concerned about my voice and would have me go get a drink of water every so often. She’d also brought a cantaloupe and a frozen cream pie type thing. Anyway, she was so happy to get someone who could read the articles smoothly. I guess she’d tried a couple of friends, but they were unfamiliar with a lot of the vocabulary and she didn’t want to read like them. We invited her to Tai’s baptism on Thursday and she said, “Maybe I could be baptized with him.” We told her she’d have to check with the zone leaders.
Earlier we went over to teach a Muslim girl we’d tracted out last week. Ngara is a nursing student. She had us come in, we prayed and started to set up the first lesson when she said, “We can’t do this; my aunt called and I have to take our car over to her.” But she was happy to keep the Restoration pamphlet and read it. She also said she would give us a call so we can teach her and some of her friends who want to know about religion. That would be very cool if it works out. She’s a cute girl. She doesn’t look like she might be a Muslim and her English is very good so we aren’t sure what her ethnicity is. It should be interesting if she comes through for us.

ST PATRICK’S DAY

March 19, 2011 Saturday

Yep, it’s 2 days late, but we had a good time. Tonight about 5 pm when I was just going to get dinner ready, we received a phone call from Adam Mortly inviting us to dinner at 6 pm. Adam is the middle brother of the 5 Mortly brothers and lives in a house that backs onto his mother’s property. He’s single, an RM, tall, good-looking, and probably has every YSA girl in Perth chasing him. As we visited, we discovered he served in Sydney South Mission when Sam was there. He remembers Sam even though they didn’t get well acquainted since Sam was in the Chinese program. And he remembers seeing us at church when we toured Perth after Sam’s mission. Small world—even in Australia!
It was amazing—when we arrived, his front room and dining room were totally decorated for St Patrick’s Day with shamrocks and leprechauns on the walls, two Irish flags hanging from the beam of the high cathedral ceilings and 2 tables with all kinds of Irish memorabilia. One of his grandmothers was Irish, and he had visited Ireland at the end of one of his brothers’ mission to England. He was busy making 2 different kind of potatoes and stew; he’d already made potato rolls. His mum, two brothers and families, the bishop and family, and several other ward members and more food showed up until there was a group of 25-30 and the table was full of food. After dessert which included a yummy trifle, he played a CD with a bunch of Irish folk songs. Everybody sang along to the ones they knew: “Molly Malone,” “Danny Boy,” “When Irish Eye are Smiling,” “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” etc. It was a lot of fun. I even got to hold the bishop’s 4 week old granddaughter—she’s about the same age as Sam’s new baby, Lexi, so it was extra special.

ANOTHER FLAT INSPECTION

March 18, 2011 Friday

The hot water heater for this house is one of those gas “on demand” type things. But it’s been a real pain taking a shower. Once you get the water temperature set and start showering the hot water gradually shuts itself off and you are having a cold shower. So you turn up the hot water and it gradually takes over the cold you have until it becomes so hot you have to add more cold. By the end of the shower you’ve turned up the water to where it is just pounding on you. It’s not too bad now, but we weren’t looking forward to having the cold part in the winter.
So today we had a flat inspection. This lady was very fussy compared to the one we had for the Como flat. Her only really big complaint was that we haven’t been watering the grass. Hardly anybody does on this street so we didn’t figure it was a problem. But she thought dead and dying grass wasn’t a good idea. So we will start watering. It will be interesting to see what it does to the utilities bill. All of the senior missionaries’ utilities are averaged so it won’t be just us paying for the extra water. Anyway, Orson mentioned the water temperature problems. She checked it out and said she would send a plumber out to take a look. Hurray!
We took a copy of Book of Mormon Stories to James tonight when we went over to teach him. He struggles with reading so he was really excited about the book written in easier language. We gave one to Tai also this week. On the way home we swung by Monica’s house to see if there were lights on. And guess what? She was out at the mailbox checking her mail. She’s been ignoring our phone calls. So we stopped to talk to her. She says she’s not been “connecting” when she reads the Book of Mormon. We finally figured out that she wasn’t feeling the same spirit that she gets when she reads the Bible. Also her family has been giving her grief about studying with us. We were finally able to convince her to give us another chance. We sure hope it bears fruit.

THE CHANS

March 16, 2011 Wednesday

Tonight our appointment cancelled on us, so after dinner we made a few calls and found that the Chans would be home and would be happy to have us visit. (We’ve decided that we are going to take advantage of times like that to visit some of the older active members in the ward.) These guys are our age and Gina’s 97 year old mother lives with them. She was busy in the kitchen while we were there. I commented she must be healthy and Brother Chan said, “And grumpy too.”
The Chans are from Christmas Island. Christmas Island is an island northeast of here that was discovered on Christmas Day, hence, the name. It has a huge phosphate mine on it, and when phosphate was discovered there, Asians were recruited to come there to work. Sister Chan’s parents went there from Singapore when she was 4. Brother Chan’s mother was Malaysian and married a Japanese man in Singapore. Brother Chan was orphaned at 2. His grandmother raised him until she died when he was four. He had an uncle who already had a bunch of kids, but he allowed him to sleep at his house. Brother Chan was mostly supporting himself by the time he was 7 by running errands on his bike for people. He went to Christmas Island to work when he was 17. They said Christmas Island was a beautiful, remote place to live and work. Now, however, the Australian government has made it a refugee detention center. We hear about it all the time in the news because of the unrest of all the people from the Middle East who are being held there. It’s a sad mess.
Anyway, the Chans eventually moved to Australia. Elders tracted them out. They were very busy at the time and would ignore the elders when they returned to visit. Finally they kept coming back in the cold, rainy evenings of winter, and Sister Chan felt sorry for them and let them in. The rest is history. They moved to Port Hedland so he could work in the mines up there. He served as branch president there for 5 years. They were so interesting to visit. Their daughter, Belinda Oates, is a counselor in the stake RS presidency and lives in our ward.

HE PASSED!

March 15, 2011 Tuesday

This afternoon we went over to teach Tai. He greeted us in a construction worker outfit: hat with a brim all the way around, and neon green and navy shirt and pants. He was so nervous: We’d told him that Elder Harvey was coming over to do his baptismal interview. We discussed the principles in The Gospel of Jesus Christ with him. He had us explain the Atonement to him again and then repeated it back to us to make sure he knew it. Elder Harvey, a DL in a neighboring district and his brand new companion, arrived. The 3 of us left Tai and Elder Harvey to do the interview, and we were served ice cream with fruit over it in the dining area. Nice way to spend an interview. Tai passed with flying colors. Afterwards, Elder Harvey commented, “He’s golden.”
Tai’s cousin told us they’d talked to him about telling his family. So he called his LDS grandma today and told her. She was happy and advised him to write his minister father a letter. That’s a good approach.
Earlier we went to Graham and Tata’s house. We were going to show them, The Legacy. But they had been given an old DVD player and didn’t have the all the cables necessary to hook it up to the TV. We could see it, but only the back ground noises/music was audible. We’ll try it again; he said he’d get the right stuff. We’d also tried it on his computer, but his speakers only run on batteries and they must have been weak. (He says he’s “old fashioned” and only got a computer 5 years ago.) We had a good visit in the midst of all the technical problems. She told us that her brother had been killed by guerilla fighters who thought he was an army member in the jungles of the southern island where her family lives when he was 25.
We also visited Sister Clinch today. She’d been mugged a couple of weeks ago as she was driving her “gopher” on a path along the river there in Gosnell’s. Three teenage boys came up behind her on a scooter, jerked her purse from around her neck and “scooted” away. Thank heavens she wasn’t hurt badly. Her neck still bothers her and she has some headaches. She’s going to “physio” (Aussie for Physical Therapy) for that. It’s sad; it’s really scared her from going out alone. She just turned 87 last week.

P-DAY

Missionary enjoying p-day
Causeway to the island we couldn't visit
Setting up to film a commercial on the beach.
Bunkers on Peron Point
Beautiful bay
Any hole in a rock will do, obviously.
Hartog Island?
Parking on the "Verge" Everyone does it.
March 14, 2011 Monday

Today we got up early and headed down to Rockingham. It’s a city south of Fremantle where we saw a large island in the bay that had a causeway running out to it. We thought it would be great to explore. It was only about an hour’s drive from here. When ` we got to the causeway, there were signs saying only those with passes could go across. We went into the little office there and were greeted by 4 military people behind the counter. It turned out that the island is a navy base. So much for that idea.
But just a little farther along the road on the peninsula was Peron Point. The area was formerly an army stronghold protecting the bay. There were all kind of cement bunkers, gun turrets, etc., connected by some nice paths between them and beautiful vistas of old limestone rocks and the ocean rolling in onto them. There was a huge crew of people there on one beach getting ready to film a commercial. We couldn’t believe all the people involved.
After that we drove on down the coast to a place called Safety Bay. It was beautiful. The ocean there had every color of blue in it you could imagine. We ran into a delightful 80 year old lady who bicycles down to the beach almost every day so she can take a swim. She was wearing a faded T-shirt from Solvang, CA. She and her husband had taken a bus tour of the southwestern US years ago. We had a great visit. It was a beautiful, relaxing time.

DOWN & UP

March 13, 2011 Sunday

This morning we went back to teach Ariel, the 13 year old who wants to be baptized. Her grandmother met us at the door and said Ariel’s dad, who sat in for part of the first lesson, thought we were giving her “too much, too soon” and didn’t want us to continue. The grandmother also commented that Ariel is a little slow in learning things and they didn’t want to push her. We felt so bad—especially because we had only taught her part of the first lesson. And if she’s slow, we certainly didn’t notice it. At church, I talked to her and she didn’t know that her dad had stopped the lessons. She said she wants us to teach her; so we are going to let her campaign with her dad. Hopefully, she’ll be able to turn that decision around.
James and Tai were both at church along with Ariel. That always makes missionaries happy when investigators come to church. We had invited Tai to the “Cottage Meeting” they hold monthly at the mission home for investigators and their missionaries. Sunny, Tai’s cousin, said he’d take him up there. After we got there, Tai phoned and said he was going to a YSA fireside instead. But Yingping, the Chinese girl we started teaching in the Como ward, came and was excited to see us. The elders who are teaching her now said that they’d given her a baptismal date of March 26, but she didn’t seem too sure about that. It was fun to talk to her. She showed us photos of her mom and dad in China. The cottage meeting was good—it focused on the prophet, Joseph Smith. A couple of elders and sisters provided the musical numbers and they were excellent. One of the songs was, “Oh How Lovely was the Morning” sung to the tune of “Oh Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and it was beautiful.

KEVIN LAW

March 12, 2011 Saturday

Friday, while we were tracting we ran into Kevin, a Malaysian university student. He announced himself as Buddhist, but as we talked with him we could tell that he had done a lot of thinking about eternal things because he asked, “If everyone has to know about Jesus Christ, what happens to people who died without ever hearing of him?” We briefly explained that the true gospel of Jesus Christ provided for that. He seemed really sharp and willing to listen. He agreed to meet us at the church this morning for a lesson. And miracle of miracles, he showed up! We showed him around the building and then taught him. We read with him part of the 138th section of the D&C to help him understand what he had questioned yesterday. Then we taught him about prophets, explained the Joseph Smith story and gave him the Book of Mormon to read and pray about. He was even willing to pray at the end of the lesson. He has a long way to go and is concerned about studying this in addition to his Mechanical Engineering in school, but he’s willing to try. We don’t have another lesson set up with him, but he said we could call him to see how he’s doing. He already had plans for tomorrow so he won’t be at church. It was neat to teach him. You can tell he knows some stuff about Jesus Christ—I think they must cover it in their history classes in school or something. We are going to teach him concerning Christ and the atonement next time we meet with him.

TAI—GOTTA LOVE HIM!

March 9, 2011 Wednesday

This afternoon we went back to teach Tai (pronounced ‘Tie”). We reviewed the plan of salvation and he could tell us most of it. We then talked about some of the commandments and spent a lot of time on prayer and following the prophet. At the end, we asked him if he had any questions. And he proceeded to bear his testimony to us! It was so cool to listen to him. Missionaries couldn’t have asked for anything better!
Tonight we went to Moana’s. Rob, her partner, didn’t bother to sit in, but we still had a good visit with her and the girls. We talked about Heavenly Father and his love for us. We then introduced the idea of prophets and showed the Restoration DVD. Moana and the girls seemed to enjoy it. We told them we’d talk some more about it next time.

HOUSE SITTERS

March 8, 2011 Tuesday

A week ago Saturday, our stake patriarch died suddenly of a heart attack. He was only 67 and it left everyone feeling a great loss here because he and his wife are also members of our ward. We offered our services to be “behind the scenes” because we hadn’t gotten to know the family personally, and we figured there would be others who needed to attend the funeral more than we did. So we became the designated house sitters during the funeral. And what a lovely home it is. Brother LeRoux and his wife had obviously built and cared for their home with love. Sister Leroux’s mother who is 88 also lives with them. She’s amazing—I would never have guessed that she is in her late eighties. She had some beautiful counted cross stitch things framed and hung here and there. The family had opted to have the “wake” at their home instead of at the church; so after the funeral the RS presidency showed up with all the food donated for the gathering. And there wasn’t one piece of ham nor plate of funeral potatoes! However, there were beautiful fruit platters, sausage rolls, plates of sandwiches cut into triangles, chips, veges and dips, cake, cheesecake, etc. You could tell that all the donations had been made with love. A neighbor brought over a couple of huge trays of food also. Almost every flat surface was covered with beautiful cards and flowers they’d received. It was a nice tribute to a good man.

HE SET A DATE :O)

March 6, 2011 Sunday

This morning we taught Ariel her first lesson. She is a young (13) Kiwi who has been living with her mother who is a non-member. For the last while she’s been living with her dad and step-mom who are active members. Her step-mom’s parents are living with them also and are faithful members. Ariel’s been attending church and wants to be baptized in April when her half-brother gets baptized. It’s so fun to be with “islanders.” They are so happy and loving. Her grandma, mom and dad all sat in on the lesson too. She was very quiet at first but warmed up a little bit; when her mom asked her to give the closing prayer, she did a great job.
At church, Tai, the rugby player we taught earlier in the week asked us to come over to teach him after church. So we went over and “had” to eat dinner with them first. The Fatu family is famous for their food. We had chicken curry and lasagna, and it was goooooooood. We then taught Tai about (reviewed is more like it) the Word of Wisdom, Tithing and Fast Offerings, and the Sabbath Day. We also read some of the Joseph Smith pamphlet with him. He says he wants to be baptized on his birthday, March 24! He’s willing to meet almost every day so we can have him prepared. He’s such a good kid. We can’t believe how the Lord has just “dropped him in our laps!”
Adam Mortly had invited us over for dinner tonight, but we had already scheduled a couple of visits so they said to just “pop over” after we were done. His wife, Hannah, is due with their 4th baby in 3 weeks or so. And Scott, Adam’s brother and the ward mission leader, and his wife were there also. We arrived in time for dessert, apple crumble and custard with a philo crust on top and ice cream on top of that. We are definitely waddling tonight! It was fun to sit and talk with these sharp young families. Adam served his mission in California. He and his wife are hoping to move to Utah soon and have now convinced Scott and Melissa that it isn’t a bad idea for them. Another great Sabbath and we’re very grateful.

RANDOM SHOTS

Chunks of all the minerals mined in West Australia
Who knew our "Chelle" had her own street?

POW! POW!

March 5, 2011 Saturday

A double whammy, that’s what it was. One person, Michelle, whom we’ve been working with since we came to Thornlie had her mom call to tell us not to come around anymore. She’s been inactive for a long time and had broken up with her latest partner when we met her. She wanted to come back to the church and raise her kids in it. We’ve been encouraging her and teaching her kids, Keira, 12, and Kalen, 8. They’ve been having family prayer and she’d been teaching them about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. But every Sunday something would come up that kept them from attending church. And then last Sunday, her old boyfriend called and asked her to pick him up at the hospital. Immediately, all her old feelings came back for him, and she has given up all the good things she was thinking and feeling over the past month. We tried hard this week to work with her, but she was resisting us. So her mom, who lives in a different ward, said she’d call some of Michelle’s old friends who are active LDS in the ward and have them work on her—there’s more than one way to skin a cat!
Then we drove over to see James and remind him and his family that they’d said they would come to church. He met us on the porch and said they wouldn’t be coming. We tried to talk to him about how much good his return to church would do his family. He told us they were already good parents; and when he drinks, he’s a “nice drunk” who doesn’t hurt anybody. How can you argue with great logic like that? It’s too bad.
The best part of the day was when Elder and Sister Nielsen came over and had dinner with us. We enjoyed it a lot and they were proud to have been able to find our place with only a couple of turn-arounds necessary on the trip. They live up near the mission office which is about 45 minutes away from here on the north side of the Swan River.

HINDU TEMPLE NEAR OUR PLACE

ENTRANCE
CLOSE UP
SIDE OF TEMPLE
LONG SHOT
FRONT
FRONT-A LITTLE CLOSER

LIKE THE BAPTISTS?

March 3, 2011 Thursday

This morning we did some tracting on a street we started the other day. We had prayed that we might be guided to a street where there was someone who would receive our message. We chose a page in the map book in our area, selected a suburb and then independently chose a street. We had both chosen the same street so that’s where we started. Our first day on that street didn’t yield anything, but today we ran into a young man named Michael. He listened with an intensity we’ve never seen anyone listen with before. He said he couldn’t follow up with us immediately, but accepted the reading material we gave him. We both feel like he is the one we were sent to find. It was a neat experience.
This afternoon we visited Lori Manning in the nursing home. She is just the neatest lady. We took her a new pair of slippers and you’d have thought we’d given her the moon. She was so excited. (The ones she wore last time we were there were so worn out you could see all her toes in them.) But we’d bought the wrong size. So we’ll return them and get a size smaller. We had taken our family calendar to show her our family. We only got through 4 of the kids because she kept interrupting to comment (write) about something she was reminded of during her life. She then fed us water and cookies she keeps in her room for visitors. She assured us that the cookies weren’t out of date. We then took pictures; she’d told us to bring our camera this time because she loves to have her picture taken with missionaries.
We went to look up a few inactives. The last one we went to was a family with 7 children. Only the father is a member. He wasn’t there when we got there, but the wife commented they’d gone to church at Christmas time. She’d liked it but she said her husband, James, said he didn’t want to give up his smoking and drinking. We were still there when he arrived home. He wasn’t what you would call super friendly, but as we talked he invited us in where it was cooler. He asked her if she wanted to go to church and she threw it back to him. Finally he agreed they would come to church this Sunday. Just before we left, she commented that it was strange that we would turn up just after they’d been through a trauma in the family. They didn’t say what it was, but we had learned that the oldest son, 17, had recently moved out. James said maybe it was time for a change. He was baptized 20 years ago and been inactive almost that long.
Tonight we visited the Tomlinsons again. I asked him what his favorite role in his career was. He said it was in “Kizmet” which isn’t an opera but a musical. He then went through the last scene describing favorite bits and breaking out into song a couple of times. My goodness, what a beautiful baritone voice that man has. The stake patriarch died suddenly of a heart attack on Saturday. Colin has been asked to sing, “The Holy City,” at the funeral. I wish we could be there. I’d love to hear him sing. But since we didn’t know the patriarch even though he’s in our ward, we volunteered to do something behind the scenes so others could attend the funeral. We’ve been asked to stay at the house during the services and help with the food which will be served at the house.
It’s been a good day. But remember Seth whom we taught on a Sunday morning and then he came to church in the afternoon? We called him to follow up, and he told us it reminded him a lot of the Baptist church and that he was too busy to study anymore with us. I don’t know what made me feel worse: saying we were like the Baptists or not wanting to learn anymore.

KANGAROOS IN THE CITY

Mama & joey
Two big guys
In he goes!

RUGBY PLAYER

March 2, 2011 Wednesday

This morning we joined the Zone Leaders in a lesson with Yingping. They had asked her to read Enos and she did! It must be that they are cuter than we are—at least that is what we are telling ourselves. She still is holding back. I think she is afraid to let go of her self image as a “free thinker.” But it was fun to see her again. The Gospel would help her so much.
This afternoon we got to teach Monica whom we met last week. We had introduced her to the idea of the apostasy, restoration and Book of Mormon. She was really anxious to get the book. She just seemed to absorb what we told her. Near the end, her little boy started to get fussy while she needed to read some scriptures so I got to hold and play with him. I still couldn’t get a big smile out of him although he was comfortable being on my lap. When we finished, she smiled and said, “I have so much to learn.” She agreed to come to church on Sunday. We have to arrange a ride for her.
Tonight we taught Tai. He’s from New Zealand, is 18 years old, and is playing rugby for Curtain University. It’s interesting—he doesn’t even have to be taking any classes. He was invited over here to play rugby and he agreed to come. His family is LDS and has been active off and on. About 6 months ago he started going to church with his friends and he believes it’s true. He’s had most of the lessons already in NZ. So we are basically reviewing stuff for him. He agreed to be baptized near the end of the month. He told us he wants to get baptized, wait a year, and then go on a mission! He’s living with his cousin’s family in our ward. They are a super sharp family of Kiwis.
After that we took cake and ice cream over to Elder Campbell. He turned 22 today. He and Elder Kent are so cute. There was another set of elders at their flat when we got there. And just as we left, the sisters in the district showed up with a birthday cake for him. It was fun.

TATA

March 1, 2011 Tuesday

And it’s not, “Tata for now,” as the British and some Aussies say. Her name is Tata. She’s from the Philippines and that’s her nickname actually. But she says everyone has a nickname over there. She met an Aussie man who is/was a member of the church. So she took the lessons and was baptized. They were married and now live here. They both seem to be in their 40’s. She was baptized 2 years ago and didn’t ever get taught the new member lessons, so they invited us over today. We started out with the first principle, “God is Our Loving Heavenly Father.” We asked her to tell us her concept of God and discovered she didn’t even know He has a body. Her ideas of Him and Christ were more like the Nicene Creed. So we spent the entire hour teaching her about the Mormon beliefs of God and Jesus Christ. Her English seems good, but it’s very basic. Although she’s been attending church now for 2 years, I don’t think much has sunk in. Her husband joined 30 years ago, but his name doesn’t show up on the ward list so we think there must be a problem in his background and maybe he isn’t as strong as he would like everyone to think. It’s an interesting situation, to say the least.
Tonight we had the loudest door slamming incident we’ve had on the mission. We went to an inactive fellow’s home. After we knocked twice, a cute little girl peeked out the window, so we knocked again. The father opened the door, yelled, “No!” and slammed the door. We don’t even know for sure if he’s the member we were looking for because it all happened so fast. As we go through the inactives list, we are finding that a lot have moved and no one even knows they are gone.

PASTOR ADAM

February 26, 2011 Saturday

This afternoon we finished all the visits we’d planned on and still had a bunch of time. So we drove to an area and tried something we’d heard about in a zone conference. We got out the map of that area and prayed to know what street we should tract. We both came up with the same street name: Sacred. Now that should have said something! Anyway we were greeted at one house by a guy in his early thirties who was very friendly and told us he was one of the pastors at Riverview Church (which coincidentally two of our investigators have mentioned that they attend). He thought it was great that we were out trying to bring people to Christ and was willing to listen and share ideas about Christ; but when we got to the Book of Mormon, he wasn’t quite as excited to listen. Still we told him about it and that is was a 2nd witness to Christ. We had him read the promise in the Book of Mormon. He took one of the “17 Points of the True Church” and also a pass-along card with the church web site on it. We feel he was the one that the Lord wanted us to find on that street. He wouldn’t mark with us for a return visit, but perhaps we planted some seeds that may bloom down the road.
Tonight we visited Scotty Tuiletoa. The bishop asked us to see him because he’s in the hospital with a spinal cord injury. We asked which hospital and the bishop couldn’t tell us or even which street it was on but he did know how to get there. We’ve asked a few others who also didn’t know. We went to Scotty’s house and left a note for his sister and her husband, the Ah Sangs, for them to call us, but that didn’t happen. Today we went to another Samoan’s house who we’d been told could tell us where Scotty is. (This has been a 3 week issue.) Someone else pulled up just when we did, and it turned out to be Brother Ah Sang. We met on the porch, and he told us the name of the hospital. We decided since we were there we should at least meet Tui Fatu, the guy who lives there. His son-in-law answered the door. I’d met him at church in the foyer last week. He wears the traditional sarong-type thing that men in the islands wear. We ended up not meeting Tui, but at least we had the name of the hospital.
So tonight we went to visit Scotty. It turns out he’s been there for 8 months. He injured his neck playing Rugby with friends and was paralyzed from the neck down. He’s in a rehab hospital. He seemed about mid-forties in age and was very friendly and upbeat considering his situation. He can now feed himself and has mobility in both arms. It takes 3 people to get him up into a chair. He’s not sure how long he will be hospitalized. He’s being moved to the “Quad Unit” next Monday. We aren’t sure what the difference in care will be. He’s been working with both physical and occupational therapist where he’s been. He came over here 2 years ago to help his sister with her business. His wife and 4 kids are still in Samoa. I guess they don’t have the money to come over to visit him. That’s sad, but he’s sure a neat guy. We’ll go back to see him again.
We also stopped at a beautiful Hindu temple near here. We’ve driven past it a lot and said we wanted to get some photos. Today it was open so we went in. It was amazing. Below are photos of it. They were happy to have us take pictures outside. We could go in. It was one huge room with all kinds of statues of their gods around the sides. At the front was an area where you could pray and get the red dot put on your forehead. There were a couple of priests up there, one talking to people who came to worship and the other was doing water rituals in front of some of their gods. It made us grateful for our church!

MEMORY LANE

February 25, 2011 Thursday

This morning we went to visit Paul Hanson, a less active member about my age. His wife isn’t a member and kept herself busy so she didn’t have to come in and sit down for the first part of the visit. Paul immediately started talking about his mission. He’d served as a construction missionary in 1964 in Adelaide and a few other cities in South Australia. That’s when Orson was there. Paul started talking about Elder Moss, the construction supervisor. Orson remembered him and then commented what a good cook Sister Ross was. Paul then jumped in and they had a good time reminiscing about some of the “funny times” of their missions. They figure they probably met each other but couldn’t remember for sure. Paul pulled out some photos he kept in an envelope on the little phone table and we couldn’t even recognize him in the photos. So it’s understandable that Orson and Paul didn’t remember each other. His wife came in and visited with us after a while and was quite friendly. He invited us back for some cold water and a chat whenever we want. It would be neat if we could teach Betty, his wife. We plan to go back and see if we can become friends at least.

We had some great photos to attach, but they seem to have disappeared from the CD we put them on. Drat!!!

LEXI IS HERE!

February 23, 2011 Wednesday

We have a new grandbaby, Lexi Matilde Porter, daughter of Sam and Lisa. She was born yesterday morning in Long Beach, California. She came by C-section and mom and baby are doing fine. We went to the library and got on the internet this afternoon and saw pictures of her. She’s a cute little baby and will be a delight to everyone around her just like our other grandchildren are. Her middle name is Norwegian. She’s named after Lisa’s grandma. She is our 18th grandchild.
This afternoon we taught Monica. She was a referral from a friend of hers who is receiving the lessons from elders in another ward. She’s from Africa and has a 6 month old boy. He’s tall for his age and very strong. I held him for a bit while Orson was teaching, and I could tell that he wasn’t used to being played with or even smiled at. It’s kind of sad when you see a baby like that. But she was interested in our message. English is a bit of a challenge for her, but not so much that she can’t be taught. We discussed Christ’s church and the things that a church in our day needs to have to be like His church. We are going back again next week.