Zone conference was lots of fun - several hours straight of mostly videos about using technology as a missionary. Big surprise, they don't want missionaries using smartphones the same way that they used them back home. So we had a lot of training on how to set "safeguards" to avoid falling into temptation or something like that. There's a hysterical example video of two elders walking down the street, one sees some couple making googly eyes at each other, and then he goes to look up his girlfriend on Facebook. Great fun. Every Elder in the room immediately felt either uncomfortable or trunky, without exception. I'll let you guess which I was. We're very excited to be upgrading - the potential for the mission and for our area is tremendous.
Elder Liu and I have had a blast are first few weeks. He loves symphony music and studying English, and he likes GQing a little bit less. That's alright. We keep working. He offered to cook the first week, which has been a double edged sword. We cooks for me, great. But he's from Sichuan - which means crazy spicy. We're growing in more ways than one.
I had my first real taste of Australian language this week. I mentioned before that they all swear - and yeah, that's true. There's also a few phrases that aren't swears but still very Aussie. "Fair dinkum" means "fair" or "true". A member used the subject line above while I visited in their home, word for word. I heard that it historically has something to do with miners talking to Chinese people about finding gold. I dunno if that's true, but I hope so, because that would mean that Aussie slang is actually Chinese.
I got a well-needed haircut a few hours ago today. The lady cutting my hair was from Taiwan. She's coming to church on Sunday. Yessss. Teach when you find and find when you teach, my friends. Not that there was any teaching going on here. But hey, P Day. Sometimes the contacts you make aren't when you're out looking - but they're when you're doing your best to serve the Lord and He sends them in His time. We made a random call to a family in our area book and now we've got a dinner appointment. The come out of left field, sometimes. But they always come.
Our investigators are all pretty great, except all but two don't have time to meet with us. So, the two meeting with us are great. Ted and Bowen are approaching a baptismal date - we're really excited for them both. A major sacrifice for students to give us some of their time, for sure - but we know that the Lord will recognize their efforts. Those who seek will find. Those who find the gospel have their lives changed. And that's why we're here.
We keep on pressing on. Things are going well here. I hope things are just as good back home. Congrats to all of the 2018 graduates - I can't believe you're all so old already. Feels like a month ago I was there myself. How time flies. I hit my year mark next transfer - isn't that insane?
Miss you all!
Elder Blackhurst
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