Still a missionary

Hey, everyone! Great week. 

We're in the car on the way home from another crazy p day adventure. I'm on my phone and don't reeeeaaally want to write a long letter, but I'll give my best. 

In all honesty, it was a very uneventful week. One lesson and five days of pretty straight contacting. We haven't a had a lot of success at finding new investigators, but we're out putting in the hours and praying for those who are ready to come into our path. 

Highlight of the week was working with Bowen. One lesson with him last Saturday. We discussed baptism. I invited him to go home and pray about it - ask God for a date, and to come back and tell me at Church on Sunday. After church, I sat down with him and asked if he had any thoughts.  He expressed a simple, but important question. He wasn't sure how God would answer Him, what look for for an answer. I pulled our Elders Quorum President aside and the three of us talked for near half an hour about prayer. We couldn't tell him exactly what sort of "answer" he should be looking for, but we touched on an important principle. We ask God questions and expect answers. But sometimes, He doesn't give us what we're looking for because He knows it isn't what we need. Bowen can pray from sunup to sundown about what specific day he should be baptized on. And a loving God will wait for him to look and remember what really matters. The day doesn't matter. The specifics don't carry as much significance in light of the big picture. The Lord will take care of us. We just need seek His will. Bowen committed to be baptized on the 11th and we couldn't be more excited.

 

We're driving home. Truck drives by full of hay. I said, "hay!" Everyone is now threatening to throw me out. Things are going great.

 

I love being a missionary. Even when it's slow- no greater work. 

Have a great week! Love you all!

 

Elder Blackhurst

Wheels on the bus

Hey everyone! It's been a long week. Glad we made it to P Day. We're working hard and doing our best. Sometimes there's a few less results than we like - but we trust that it is all in the Lord's timing. 

We spent a lot of this time looking for new methods to find investigators. We hadn't done any PT contacting in the last while, so we decided to give that a go this week. Get on the bus and go places and see if anyone will make friends with you. We spent a lot of time on the bus. There comes a point where, no matter how effectively or ineffective your work is, you have to trust the Lord to provide. I had a point where we were standing at the bus stop I just wanted to talk to someone - find someone I could serve. I said in my heart - Lord, I want to bless someone's life. I'm looking. I'm where I need to be. Send them to me. I kid you not, less than a minute passed and an older Chinese lady came up to me, we started chatting. Lovely lady - a doctor back in China, came to Melbourne to be with her children who were studying with their families. She was struggling to find ways to be useful because of the language barrier. She thinks very highly of Christianity, but fears she could never be "good enough". We committed to an English lesson later this week and hopefully we can help her see the purpose of Christianity - not for perfect people to gather with other perfect people, but for imperfect sinners to improve together. To put off the natural man and become a Saint, through Jesus Christ. I love being able to testify, all day everyday. No greater work in the world. 

Met with the Stake President and a few other members - discussing how we can better help the Chinese members in Melbourne. Very cool opportunity to sit down with the stake leadership and discuss how we can better serve. I was definitely under qualified to be there and share my thoughts, but they asked us to be there, so go we did. There's a power in unity - the Savior himself taught that we must "be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine." It is a blessing to be surrounded by people who can come together and work together despite their differences. We seek the will of the Lord and do our best to follow Him - together. 

Another short email - lots of contacting, not a lot of results. 

Hopefully these next few weeks I'll have a few more adventures to share. 

I miss you all lots, hope you have a lovely week. So many of our missionaries are getting into the MTC - I'm so excited for you all. Keep me updated on all of your adventures.  继续加油!

Elder Blackhurst

More adventures from the land down under

Hey everyone! Another great week. Busy. Not much to report - we're still cranking on. 

We went out to the Morrington Peninsula today - southernmost tip of the peninsula on the right, just south of Melbourne. Very beautiful. Turns out most of it was closed, so we drove a long way to see very little. But even then, it's such a gorgeous country. Wandered down along several beaches and rock formations - I love Melbourne. 

I heard a song played in Chinese the other day, and it struck me just how much I could figure out on my own. Chinese has grown, my friends. To all of my lovelies who are preparing to serve a language mission - don't sweat the language. Work hard. It will come. The Lord will provide. 

We had exchanges last week. My new Zone Leader is Elder Zalypko - a funny Ukrainian Elder who's been serving for almost exactly as long as I have. Hysterical. After only working with Americans and Chinese and Australians for a year, a little European taste was definitely a change. He found a MoTab arrangement of an old Ukrainian piece on my drive (no clue where it came from) and that's all we listened to for the whole day. He tried to get me to teach him a little Chinese, but it all came out with the Ukraine accent, which was pretty funny in itself.

I was truly blessed by the tender mercies of the Lord this week. Long days upon long days. I think the Lord knows exactly when we need a little slack cut, and when we need to push a little harder. There were things I was able to do and people I was able to meet and I hope the Lord continues to provide as we do our best to do His will. I know He loves me and cares for me. I hope despite my weakness, that I can do a little to give back to Him. Not that anything I could ever do could ever pay Him back for all He's given us - but in overwhelming gratitude, I follow His example to show my love to Him. 

And beyond that, it was a pretty slow week. We're talking with lots of people, making lots of new friends, trying to connect. I made lots of new Facebook friends, both from here and back home. It's a little weird every time I see someone I know's picture pop up on my phone, but I'm glad to hear you're all doing well. Keep the emails coming, I love the news coming from back home.

 

Short email this week, I'll be sure to put a better one together next week. I love you all, miss you lots. Keep on doing good.

Elder Blackhurst

With great power comes great responsibility

Hey everyone! Another fantastic week in the land down under. It has been a busy week, and next week will be even more so. We're grateful for the many opportunities we have to work and to serve and we hope the Lord continues to bless us as He has in the last while. 

The phones are rocking our world. It's been madness trying to get everything set up and linked up and getting all the records into place. I'm now more socially connected than I was before my mission. I'm sure you all know that I wasn't a social media sort of guy back home, but Facebook and WeChat and the likes are tools we can use to better do the work. So I spent an hour yesterday getting Facebook set up for my Chinese district members because they didn't release the set-up instructions in Mandarin. Anyway. You're welcome to find me. I won't come looking for you, but I'll accept friend requests. The purpose of the account, of course, is missionary work. But I'd love to be in contact and to hear a little more about what you're all up to. If you want to contact me personally, email is still best. But If you care to get a few positive missionary thoughts, you're more than welcome. 

With the new technology, we've been getting lots of training on good things to do with our phones, and not good things with our phones. If I hear one more person quote Spiderman, I might lose it. But the statement does stand - there's a lot of potential for good and evil with so much connectivity. For example, I've become to go-to English teacher for half of our investigators ever since I got the phone. I can call them and spend 20 minutes giving an English lesson because of the quality and clarity of the conversation. So many good tools. I also know there's a lot of ways to waste your time. I know I try to talk to a lot of people every day and most of them are on their phones when I approach. Most of them aren't doing something productive with their phones. I personally have found myself using more time than I should in learning about all the cool features my phone provides - we can't let it get in the way of the things that matter. I wonder how much all of you back home use your phones for good, and how much you might consider giving up? It is a powerful temptation, just to get lost in the virtual world. Don't forget to look up once in a while and appreciate the world around you. 

Zone conference was this week. Always fantastic. President Vidmar is an excellent teacher and trainer and I'm ever so grateful to be under his stewardship. Fun fact: not only is he a gold medal Olympian (two golds and a silver), he also happens to be the only non-general authority to give a talk in General Conference. In April of 1985, he was the first speaker at the General Priesthood session, where he delivered a talk on Pursuing Excellence. Great talk, but it's really weird to see a video of your mission president from 30+ years ago. He looks awkwardly young. Honestly, I don't know if he's the only non-general authority to speak, but someone told me and I trust them enough not to double check. If anyone wants to source check that and let me know, that'd be great. 

We have two investigators who are approaching baptism. Our ward has been picking them up and bringing them in and I couldn't be more grateful. To all of you back home: find your local missionaries. Offer your help to them. When they bring an investigator to church, I hope you can say that you were the first person to introduce yourself. It makes a world of difference. We need to be loving our fellow men. The missionaries make it easy: they give you easy opportunities. I implore you all, take them. Find a way to serve today and tomorrow and every day for the next week. I can promise that the Lord will poor out his blessings.

Congrats to Elder Johnnie Johnson, who returned home from Trinidad after an honorable two years. Can't believe time goes so fast. 

I love you all, have a great week! Love the Lord and keep on moving. I look forward to hearing from you all soon. 

Elder Blackhurst

Oh, say can you see...

Hey everyone! Another great week. I'll apologize now for the shorter letter, I'm writing this from my new Samsung J5. I forgot how much I despise writing on a phone, but so it goes. I'll write what I can and type a proper letter next week. 
But it definitely was a fantastic week. Lots of new investigators and good lessons taught. I love going out and sharing my testimony. Not a lot of people are as excited to see me as I am to see them, but hey. All part of the gig. 

So, yes. New phones. Fancy. Now everything is online, phone calls are clearer, and I can Google translate everything. Texting us worlds easier and I'm so excited about all of our new language opportunities. I've taught several English lessons in the last week that wouldn't have been possible last week.

One of the apps we have is Duolingo - a free language learning app. Intended for language missionaries, but of course, most missionaries have given it a go. Our zone leaders are learning Greek, the APs Mandarin; Elder Liu started Klingon before very quickly abandoning hope. Lots of fun. 

Elder Liu and I went out with a member today for P Day. We had to get up early, so I set a 5 o clock alarm. What tone do you think I set for the alarm?  None other than the mighty MCO Star Spangled Banner. Happy 4th, my fellow Americans. 

Tracted lots recently. We've met lots of fun people. It always makes me laugh when people give stupid excuses for why they can't talk to us. Liru shuo, they're suddenly sick, or they have to go take care of "something". "I'm Christian", so don't bother. "I'm not Christian", so don't bother. But once in a while, we'll knock a door. Maybe it's a mother who comes to the door. Maybe she isn't interested in our message in particular. But she loves Christ and your love of the Savior connects you. Made me think: is our devotion to the Savior the first thing people notice about us? Or are we more concerned about other little things? May we all be a little more devoted to Him this week.
 
Thank you for the fun package I received this week. I hit my one year mark tomorrow - crazy. Seems like just yesterday I was getting out of the MTC. 

My dear brothers and sisters, I'm not the same Elder who stepped off the plane last September. And the Lord has only begun His refining process. When we let Him take the lead, He'll help us become everything He wants us to be. I know that. I love Him. I love missionary service and I look forward to the adventures coming up this next year. 

Have a great 4th and a great rest of the week!

Elder Blackhurst