SNOW IN TASMANIA! (July 27)

G'day all! 

Tthis will be short as, as we are in need of some baptismal things with someone who just got baptised in another ward near us. SORRY! Salvation comes first :(

Anyway, this week was epic. We saw so many miracles and were able to set 4 baptismal dates with people! 

Also, the Book of Mormon is amazing. We are reading it with a Sudanese family and that was awesome. I love hearing them read and struggle over words. They really do learn quickly and can apply it in their lives. What wonderful, and humble people.

IT SNOWED IN TASMANIA! We drove down after exchanges with some missionaries, and BOOM SNOW!!! WHAT UP!!!

It was an awesome week. Please forgive me. I'll let you know about how things are going with all our investigators and fun adventures.

LOVE YOU ALL!!! SHINE BRIGHT!

-Elder Sargeant 

PLEASE PRAY FOR :Joseph to get a new job, Ty to come to church! PLEASE PLEASE AND THANKS!!

"Grumbleness is next to Godliness" (July 20)

G'day all!

There is a less active man named Graham, or Grumbles as we call him, who fed us this past Sunday for lunch. His son is Daniel who was recently baptised. HE IS THE MAN, (both are pretty awesome but Grumbles is hilarious). He made us tacos and we were joking with him about coming to church and how he NEEDS to. He knows he does because he gets emotional whenever we share scriptures with him. In time, the Spirit will work. Anyway, he was talking about how we need to follow the Word of Wisdom so we don't get fat! He also said it while holding a can of Jack Daniels beer.... and that's when you dropped the line "Grumbleness is next to Godliness" in response to our rebuking him for his hypocrisy. He is the man though. We love us some Grumbles.

In our area we have three missionaries now since Elder Harvey is going home. We got him on Wednesday and he's getting SMASHED with the cold. His name is Elder Cavanaugh and he was my last Zone Leader!! How lucky am I?! Two sweet as companions to smash it up. We've had some fun moments together already. I accidentally head butted Elder Cavanaugh the other night while we were preparing to go to bed. He was concealed under his blankets and SMASH. It was bad but funny. Then he slept walked and high fived Elder Harvey since he thought we had to get up. It was crack up! 3am sleep walking!

The week was really good. It was fun going out and seeing mini miracles, like Daniel's brother being interested in the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. It started to rain and hail and we just did some door knocking and found 2 people in twenty minutes who wanted us to come back.

This morning had it's miracles as well! We met this lady named Molly and her friends who work at a place called Herbal life. We finally got to meet with them after like 4 weeks and they were SO keen to hear about the Book of Mormon. So we watched a Mormon Message called "Book of Mormon Story" and they LOVED IT. They all accepted a Book of Mormon, and one of them named Chris said "Yeah, I would REALLY love to have a copy."

It was awesome. Nothing beats sharing the Gospel and seeing others gain some faith from hearing the testimony we share. It's the BEST JOB EVER! 

OH! The Kings came down on Monday! THAT WAS SO FUN! We went out to lunch at a place called Fish Frenzy (best fish and chips ever) and then some ice cream. I'll attach some photos.

Thanks for your prayers, letters, and love.

-Elder Sargeant!

Blessing and blessings. (July 13th)

Well, transfers have come again... I'm STAYING! Haha, no surprise. My companion and I will be getting a third one to stay with us while we wait 4weeks before Elder Harvey dies :( He's gutted as... and I reckon it's surreal as. He just went to the mainland to bear his testimony before he leaves. He had to pack already and man it's hitting him but he's handling it well.

Anywho, on to the week! What adventures came about? What fun things happened? Well, let's see... someone gratified our car! Not with paint... but it was basically attacked by dirt from our ride home through this place called the Highland lakes at the beginning of the month. Our car turned into a bird poop target as well... so we finally got it washed. I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN A PHOTO!

The rest of the week was just filled with the usual stuff. However, my favourite part was being able to give Priesthood blessings to some sick peple and some Sister Missionaries that were struggling. It's an amazing honour to serve and act on behalf of Jesus Christ. It's humbling and I LOVE IT >:) 

Hahaha, so we have this investigator named Brenton who is the biggest Tupac fan in the world. He also loves to play card games called Yu-gi-oh and Magic the Gathering. He told us to meet him at this comic book store in the city called Area 52. That place... is nerd heaven. Literally, they have every comic book around and cards up the Wazoo! Holy crud! Also, they have card game tournaments that last for ages on some new cards that come out. Basically, it's a pool of sweaty guys and girls playing against each other until their is 1 winner, who gets MORE cards and such. It was funny as! I reckon that it would be fun to just watch the intensity. We talked about it with a member from the ward and he said that when nerds get into cards, the sweat a different kind of sweat... "nerd" sweat. It was crack up.

We got a referral from our Bishop for a family that we had seen a while back, but didn't talk to them because they were screaming at each other. Turns out one of them is a Less active man who wants to come back to church with his non member partner named Deanne! We finally met with them and talked to them about their wants, fears and the Spirit was SO strong. They expressed their fear of losing those they love and disappointing people. They also said they wanted to be married together as a family and be sealed in the Temple. What a GREAT GOAL. We were ecstatic. Anyway, George, her partner who is returning to church, came on Sunday. He asked us for a blessing later that night and we went over and gave him one. In it, it talked about his conversion years before and how he needs to hold on to that. He said he felt so much peace after and that it really helped.

THIS MORNING WE WENT UP TO MT WELLINGTON FOR SOME LAST MINUTE SITE SEEING BEFORE EVERYONE LEFT! 

OUT OF TIME.

LOVE YOU HEAPS!!!

-Elder Sargeant 

Time is short! (July 7th)

G'day all!!!

This will have to be short unfortunately but that's all good! This last week we spent most of our time in Melbourne for a conference with the Mission Leaders. It was actually pretty cool. Listening to the different ideas and things that we need to do as leaders in the mission inspired me more to just help out others more. I reckon that's the best part about this new opportunity of being down in Tasmania... we are like the Zone dads. We went on exchanges after we got back from Melbourne on Wednesday and we balled HARD in the morning for our morning exercise! One of the missionaries named Elder Rowan is from Sydney, AU and he is flipping good at basketball. Makes me miss those days of church ball haha. 

We had some good experiences teaching Jeff and Ebbi, the best friends of Sam and Daniel who are two of our Recent converts! They have been progressing pretty slow but finally they we were able to get them to say yes to coming to Church! 9am is a big deal for some people... pfft ;) Naw, it was awesome! They are the best and Sam and Daniel were looking fresh in their new church attire. Daniel was rocking his new suit and Sam was looking good as well. Jeff really seemed to enjoy church and Ebbi said she was tired but that she enjoyed it as well. We'll see how they continue to go! Keep them in your prayers please! :)

We also did some service on a Sheep farm with one of the RC named Kylie Whakataka. We were able to take a tour of about 1/8 of the farm... it's 1600 ACRES! We then saw where they shear the sheep and that was pretty cool. They're some full on ladies... let me tell you. Then we helped them collect some MASSIVE as pine cones for their fire places.

I had an interesting feed yesterday at one of our Sudanese investigators homes. We came to share a message and they gave us some food, as they always do. This time however, I saw this massive triangular piece of meat. I thought nothing of it so when offered I grabbed a piece. Well... it turned out to be a FISH HEAD COVERED IN BREAD CRUMBS! When I first saw it and realized... I was a bit turned off but after some thoughts I figured hey... give it a go! 

IT WAS FLIPPIN GOOD! Fish brain is honestly delicious! :)

Today for P-day we went hiking up this massive trail which led to an overlook of one of the highest mountains in Tasmania. It overlooked what's called Cape Raul. It took about 1 hour or so to climb but we didn't do the whole thing. We went with one fo the members from church named Brother Rodney Wood and two other missionaries. What a champ. I'll send photos next week as... I forgot my camera.

LOVE YOU ALL!!! Enjoy your week!

Car Fasts---bring miracles! (July 1)

G'day all!!

This will be short... again... I'm sorry. We've had a hectic week as we went to Melbourne on Monday for an MLC meeting! (Mission Leadership Council). It was 6 hours long and pretty legit.

However, that's not what you wanted to hear! Last week was a good as week. It was cold, rainy, and windy too which made for some miracles to be abounding if we worked hard. I'd say we tried our best and had some cool experiences. For one, there was a time when we had to walk the entire day in our area because we had to save K's for our car. We did a "Car fast" for the whole day. It was good because we got to talk to some interesting people who had some interesting beliefs.

My personal favourite was one man who believed that we are all viruses living in a giant person's stomach and that person we call "God" is the stomach which we live in. He said "it's all in the Bible, you just have to read it!"

He then began to tell us that Jesus was a magician which was a bit irritating because, well... HE ISN'T! Don't be talking about the Saviour like that! He was a nice guy, just had some different... very different... beliefs.

Then, we had Daniel Fellowes baptism. His grandparents came down to see him and his g-pa baptized him. His dad is less active and decided to come to church AND the baptism, which was awesome because we've been working with him for ages. He cried the whole time, especially when his son Daniel was baptized. That was such a good experience. The Spirit radiated the room and Daniel was SO prepared. He told us that he felt that turning away from sin has built his understanding... where did he get that? Job 28:28. Home boy read the Bible! GOOD ON HIM (since he really doesn't like reading). Now he has a suit and looks fresh to death!

Then, Monday morning for our exercises we decided to run up this mountain that's called Mt. Wellington! IT WAS COVERED IN SNOW!!! but the gates were locked so we couldn't go the entire way. I didn't because one of the Elder's sprained his ankle the day before and didn't wanna walk the 7km to the top. It was beautiful and I took some photos. However... I forgot my camera. STINK.

LOVE YOU HEAPS. The gospel is TRUE! Share it with your friends, and just do things for other people. Too often we forget the importance of the words that show we care. Just say them because there is power in words.

-Elder Sargeant