CHINESE TRAINING MEETING

There are 28 Missionaries called to serve in the Australia Brisbane Mission speaking      Mandarin Chinese.  

It is an amazing dimension to this mission working with these great young men and young women, who are working miracles in Queensland teaching and baptizing.  We now have Chinese Training Leaders who oversee the missionaries assigned to serve in this capacity; they teach, train and manage the situations that are unique to these missionaries.  They held their first Chinese Training Meeting which we were privileged to attend.  Singing hymns in Chinese was a first 

(thinking of our missionary daughter, Sarah, in Taiwan...).  

Listening to this fascinating language as they shared scriptures, thoughts and teaching with each other was so inspiring. 

THEY ARE WONDERFUL!

These missionaries come from Taiwan, China, Singapore, Japan, United States, Hong Kong, and Australia

MISSION MIRACLE

Elder Low and Elder Palemene found this new convert who is from Australia; she was keen to learn and they taught her all the lessons. She loved everything she learned and loved all that she heard.  She was supposed to be baptized before this transfer but she couldn't make it to church so we need to postpone it.
She was so ready , she was excited to get baptize.  We told her she needs to make it to church and she did everything she could to make it to  three Sundays in a row. 
She was baptized by Elder Low  April 12th 2014, between the sessions of General Conference.
She received the gift of the Holy Ghost April 20th 2014
Elder Bejarano and Elder Low

MISSION MIRACLE

 This is "The Wood Cutter", Elder Ledesma and I found him through his friend who is a member of the church. He has been coming to church for almost 6 months when we met him, he told us that the 1st time he came inside the church, he felt good, at home, at peace, he also told us that when he talks to members he feels the Spirit and he told us that he wanted to be baptized but at that time we didn't have a car and he live 130 km South of Warwick town. The next transfer got my new companion, Elder Rollins and we got a car. We started teaching him! The turning point of his journey in the gospel is when we set a baptismal date for him, after a week, we plan to teach him the "Stop smoking program" but when we were about to teach him the program, he told us that he already stop smoking after 48 yrs and he already bought Milo to replace his coffee. All these things he did after we set the date. and the rest is history! I'm just grateful to be part of this miracle and to be a firsthand witness of it. On April 5, He was baptized by Elder Rollins in a lake, inside a National park because we didn't have a baptismal font in Warwick, It was a wonderful spot, the Spirit was there, After coming out of the water he says "See that sins... GONE!!!" as he splashes water away from him and has a grin on his face that could be seen from the heavens. On April 6, I had the privilege of confirming him as a member of the Church. The whole process of his journey in the gospel was hard but it was worth it! He has that strong faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and every time we see him, he still have that big smile on his face! Distance and time was a problem for us but with the help of the members in the ward and Faith in the Savior it was a success for all of us.
I'll never forget him, he always calls me Elder Ya-But :D
Taught  by: Elder Rollins and Elder Yabut

MISSION MIRACLE

We took one of the young men out with us and challenged him to place his first Book of Mormon! We went finding for about 1 hour when we were getting ready to leave. We just had a couple houses left so we decided to just finish them really quick. We got to the second to last house and James tried to give away the Book of Mormon. The lady took it, flipped through a couple pages as he talked about it and then gave it back. So he picked up his hopes and we went to the last door. Where we found a mother who is confined to a Wheelchair and her daughter. He gave away the Book of Mormon and set up a time for us to come cut their lawn. A couple weeks later after receiving all the lessons, she asked if this young man could be the one to baptise her.
If we wouldn't have received the prompting to keep going, they would not have been found. Because a couple weeks later, two days after her baptism they moved over to Townsville. If we would have decided to listen to our stomach which told us with great roars that it was lunch time, we would not have found these two gems. But we decided to listen to the spirit and now they are enjoying the blessings.

MISSION MIRACLE

It was the last week of the month and we had not had a baptism for the month. On a whim of faith during weekly planning that day we decided that we would set as a goal not just one but two baptisms for the upcoming week. That afternoon we went to visit a returning member and her daughters – 10 year old twins – both of whom were not baptised. At the end of our visit we extended the invite for them to be baptised and one said “yes”. We asked when she would like to be baptised and she said “tomorrow”. We decided to at least give ourselves a week to teach the lessons and invited her to prepare to be baptised a week later and she agreed with a resounding yes. That meant that we had one baptismal date but we still needed another. Then her sister also decided that she wanted to be baptised but on a different day.
The next day their Mother told us that she had spoken to the man that baptised her a number of years ago and that he was going to fly up to Brisbane for the baptism of her daughters and that he would perform the baptisms. So that she wouldn’t miss out the other sister decided to move her baptismal date to the same day as her sister. A week later in answer to the goal that we had set both of these beautiful sisters were baptised by the same person who baptised their Mother and in the same place. We didn’t know when we set that goal that the Lord had a specific miracle that he wanted to bring to pass but he did. Who are we to get in the way!? We learnt that we should always be prepared to expect miracles and when they come we should not get in the way. The Lord works in mysterious, joyful and often quick ways!

INTERVIEWS....

We have the wonderful opportunity to interview the great missionaries in the Australia Brisbane Mission every three months:
5 days filled with President & Sister Henderson interviewing
   58 hours approximate time spent traveling and interviewing
         590 kilometers traveling to the various areas where the interviews are held
                235 missionaries who are serving in from the Gold Coast to the Sunshine Coast*
                       560 mentos  always have some mints for the missionaries to enjoy when they leave
                               countless hugs, handshakes, tears...
...AND LOVE FOR THESE INCREDIBLE MISSIONARIES WHO ARE SACRIFICING SO MUCH TO SERVE THEIR HEAVENLY FATHER TO INVITE OTHERS TO COME UNTO CHRIST

*We miss interviewing our 32 missionaries who are serving in the Northern Zone: Cairns, Atherton, Rockhampton, Townsville, Whitsunday, Mackay, Gladstone, and Mt. Isa.   We love you Elders Ezekiela, Nagato, Miller, Hatch, Huntington, Wilding, Henson, Nakatsu, Carling, Ta'ala, Christensen, Twogood, Skousen, Pu.  We love you Sisters Russell, Wainright, Merrill, Harris, Carter, Cummings, Tautuiaki and Solomon.  AND We love you Senior Couples: Kuhn's, Johnson's, Fenton's, Miller's, & Hoskisson's.  

 
   

MISSION MIRACLES

They are a miracle!

 These valiant young men have such amazing testimonies! After months of waiting to be baptized, these two young men took the leap of faith to be baptized. They have such a desire to follow Christ and to follow His commandments!

These two young men are the sons of a member, who has been in the church for 4 years.  Her boys saw her amazing example and wanted to learn about the gospel as well.  Now they enjoy all the children (of age) with the blessing of baptism! As the missionaries, we have been able to see their family grow in numerous ways! Their future is very bright in the gospel!!  We love this family so much!! Congrats!!!

Sister Wulfenstein and Sister Robertson!

MISSION RANDOM

These shoes have walked hundreds of miles in Australia!

 These missionaries know how to WORK HARD...and they also know how to smile and have fun!

So many spiritual missionary moments, but there are some fun moments captured too...