So I am here in the Canberra area, and toooons of things have already happened! I don't know if I will have time to answer all of your questions but I will try... So I guess I will tell y'all about my week in Australia.
So we landed in Sydney at like 7 in the morning Sydney time. We got off of the plane, got our luggage, exchanged money, went through customs, and got out of that place (I really needed deodorant at that point, I had been wearing the same clothes for almost 48 hours straight). President and Sister Lew met us at the airport. They are so awesome! Super fun and friendly. I didn't have much time to talk with them, but I got interviewed by Pres. Lew for like 45 seconds.
Elder Larsen's companion: Elder Cocker!
After that, they shipped us off to the mission office where we got our pics taken, did some paperwork, and relaxed for a bit before we had a welcoming meeting with all of the trainers. That was pretty cool. We learned stuff and... stuff.
At that meeting were all the trainers, waiting to be assigned a companion. During our meeting, Pres. and Sis. Lew went with the three Assistants to the President (AP's) to prayerfully decide who would train whom. And then they came back, and we were assigned out! Crazy story, Elder Cocker and his old comp Elder Pedersen came up to me before we were assigned comps and said there was a family in their area (Dapto) that were looking for me, because they know my dad. And then Elder Cocker and I are assigned together! Crazy!
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| Elders Larsen, Cocker, Pedersen and Searles. Picture taken by a friend of Jarrad's dad, who lives in their assigned ward (congregation). |
The next day we drove down to Canberra, with Elder Pedersen and his trainee Elder Searle, who are sharing a flat with us in the Queanbeyen area just south-east of the ACT and Canberra (ACT is Australian Capitol Territory). Our flat rocks! It is three stories, two bedrooms, two toilets of awesomeness!
Australia is awesome! I love it. Up in Sydney it is hot and humid, but the weather down here in Canberra is nice. The bush kinda reminds me of Nor-Cal. I have seen two dead kangaroos and one dead wallaby. I look forward to seeing a live kanga, or wallaby. The flies are HUGE! But I haven't seen any snakes or spiders yet, which I am sure Mom is glad of:). Driving on the left-hand side of the road was kind of weird at first, but I was expecting it, and remember the same thing from New Zealand (Jarrad took a trip to New Zealand in 2010).
A bit more about our ward (congregation); there are a bunch of Americans who live in our ward because of the Capital. People work at the U.S. Embassy here or with the military. We also met an American guy who runs a professional baseball team here in Canberra. It's pretty cool. The Woden Ward as of last Thursday has 6 missionaries; Our District Leader and his comp (Elders To'angutu and Moala), and then the four of us. It is crazy to think about, but our ward boundaries are fairly large.
So, the four Queanbeyan missionaries share a car among ourselves, so we have been working together, going to the same appointments most of the time, although Elder Cocker and I will be borrowing some bikes from the Ki* family (who I will mention later) starting Tuesday until the mission gets us some. It is good to be with two other missionaries, especially when we already are close and are having some good times, but I feel it is a bit intimidating to have four of us. I am actually kind of glad that we are getting bikes. Good exercise, which we will need.
We basically ate from 2-4 pm, two solid hours of feasting
Some of the highlights of the week; we got fed twice yesterday, by a Tongan family and then by a Samoan family. Needless to say, my stomach was quite full by the end of the night. After church, we got invited to the Ki* family's house for a lunch, where we ate BBQ'd steak, lamb, goat, and pork, along with prawns, potato salad, and seafood salad. It makes me full to even think about it. And to top it off, we had Trifle and Ice Cream. MMmmmmmmmmmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm. I was stufffffffed! We basically ate from 2-4 pm, two solid hours of feasting. And then at 7 pm, we went to the K*io family's home. They fed us Samoan Chop Sui. It was great. But I was already stuffed, and didn't want to be rude, so I hurt myself trying to eat more. I decided that we would make sure to only be fed max once a day.
A miracle - finding someone to talk to
The coolest thing that happened was on Saturday. A true miracle. We decided to go and do some street contacting, because we literally had no investigators to teach. So we started at this Cricket park fairly close to our house, where Elders Pedersen and Searle dropped us off so that they could go contacting less-active members. So we walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. It felt like Queanbeyan was a ghost town or something. No one was out (unfortunately) and all the shops basically were closed. And the people who were out didn't want to talk to us. We had been praying for a miracle, so we felt that we needed to do something in order to bring about that miracle.
So we kept trying. Finally, we decided to stop at KFC (yeah, they have those here!) to use the restroom. And when we were done, Elder Cocker looked like I felt: dead-tired. We almost decided to just go back. But I had this strangely-good feeling that we should just keep on going. I guess it just felt right. So we did, and five minutes later we found ourselves in this neighborhood, walking along the sidewalk, when we heard "Hey!" We looked over to where the noise came from, and there were these three guys out in front of their flats, drinking and smoking, who were just yelling "Hi" to everyone.
Elder Cocker decided that we should go over and talk to them (I'll admit I was a bit hesitant), so we did. And these guys were funny. They were pretty dang drunk, but they wanted to just talk and have a laugh with us. So we did. We talked about New Zealand (where Elder Cocker is from) and lots about California. They told us about how they were hard-core fishermen, and showed us a giant fish head from one of their catches. They also kept on saying that we should take their Audi A4 for a drive, which we politely declined.
And we talked a bit about religion. We talked a bit about how we are volunteers for our church, and what our purpose was as missionaries. They had some awesome gospel related questions, and seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say. Mostly, they were extremely impressed with our age and thought that we looked like true gentlemen. They also said that we would be welcome any time, and they would love to have us. So, after almost an hour of chatting, we told them that we would be back next week for sure, and we took off. So, basically we picked up three potential investigators. I am confident that we were led there by the Spirit. The mission feels so real now! I cannot wait to go back and hopefully help build their faith in Christ.
Final thoughts
I love you! Thanks for the many notes! Oh, and tell the missionaries thanks for the ties! They are aweeesome! I am actually wearing one of them now:)
Be good!
G'day!
I'll write yall next week :)
Elder Larsen
Hey Elder Larsen! Aloha from Brother and Sister Chun. It's so exciting to see pictures of you there in Australia. It's wonderful that the work is progressing so well. We look forward to following your posts. God bless you in his service.
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