Elder Jarrad Larsen: To those that suffer shame for His Name...

Malo e' leilei! Or something like that... That means "Thanks for being good" or something in Tongan, and it is a super nice way to greet someone. Elder Cocker has been teaching me some Tongan... :D

Elder Cocker at the Australian National Museum in Canberra.

Hi! It is good to hear from y'all!

Typical days' schedule, revisited

Well, there are no typical days in Australia. So like I mentioned last week we get up 6:30, Exercise, shower, dress, break our fasts, then study HEAPS (that's what they say here instead of "tons"), then depending on the day we will have an early lunch, then hit the field. Now, our days are all unique, but normally we will leave the flat around 12ish, and we will go and visit members, non-members, less-active members and part-member families. And since we walk, we find people to talk to as we travel. We can normally get in to see like 4-6 people a day, depending on how long we take to talk to peeps and walk, and how long we stay at different people's houses, if they are there. We have had a few days, especially this week where all of our plans fell through, so we had to improvise in various ways.

Cool bridge Elders Larsen and Cocker found while visiting different people.

Opposition in all things

As I mentioned... all of our appointments with our investigators fell through this week. Every single one. It is a bit frustrating, but it has taught me patience.

(Note: an "investigator" is someone that is investigating the Church. They ask questions, do research and discuss the Gospel of Jesus Christ with missionaries.)

An update on the 3 fishermen: we haven't been able to meet with them for a while, because they have been busy unfortunately, but we plan on seeing them like 12 million times this week. Seriously. It's gonna happen! We went to try to see one of them during the week, but he was just about to leave to go sell cherries or something. And he was reeeeaallly sober. That was weird, but good, considering he had to drive 40 minutes or so to get to where he was going. So, we haven't made much headway with them. This week has been slow.

An update on that Tongan dude: he is still eager to learn and is reading The Book of Mormon, but all of our appointments fell through with him. There must be opposition in all things, as Elder Cocker keeps on telling me. We are going to attempt to meet with him this week a couple of times. I really hope that this week isn't as slow as last week.

Queanbeyan countryside seen from a hill as a vantage point.

Interestingly enough, our area is slowly improving. We have a good plan to help us to continue improving those in the area, and our numbers are showing it! Slowly but surely!

To those who suffer shame for His Name

A scripture that helped me this week is Acts 5:41 (I think that is the reference, I don't have my scriptures because security didn't let us take our bags in the National Library this week). But it says mainly "And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name." These words refer to the Apostles being persecuted and tried by some Jewish or Roman council (I think Roman).

This is a really cool scripture in many ways. They rejoiced in their persecutions, and they recognized their sufferings as a manifestation of their worthiness to represent Jesus Christ, and suffer shame for His name. Sooooooo cool! That is exactly what we missionaries do on the daily. Often in various places of the world members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and members of other faiths are also persecuted for their beliefs much in the same way as the Apostles. So to all of you people out there who "suffer shame for His name", Good on 'ya! I hope that isn't irreverent....

Answers to family questions

Happy Birthday Cami and Sirius Black! Hopefully you are excited for your Vegemite in 2015! And nice present, Kaysie....face palm... Have fun in Salt Lake City (SLC), dad! Elder Lovin just gave me an update from SLC and how he is doing. And he mentioned that he is speaking Nepali!!! Whaaaaaa? And he is serving in a Nepali ward I think. Crazy! I hope you are enjoying my phone, Moana! I am not missing it at all! JJ! I'll be looking in the mail, buddy! Ezra! Hurrah for Israel! Mom, I hope that you figure out how much to cook with me not being there to eat it all!

Polynesian Night

Saturday night, we had a Polynesian night put on by some local Tongan guys, one of them being the before-mentioned Bro. Ki* (I spelled it wrong before). That was way cool! They fed us some good food and we had a blast seeing all of the performances and such!

Hula dancers from a Poly Night!

The District: from left to right: Elders Searle, Larsen, Cocker, Pedersen, To'ungutu, and Moala.

Last P-day we went to the National Museum and National War Museum. That was super cool! Lots of interesting stuff in there. Oh, and I bought a ukulele! Elder Cocker is teaching me how to play it, and I am picking it up fairly quickly. He is a beeeeaast! But it is sooooo fun! Next week I will have a recording of me playing it or something. It was probably the best thing I could have done with (slides hand over mouth) mumble-mumble dollars :D. There is a music store literally two minutes walk from our flat. So we get to visit that on Preparation Days (or P-days).

(Note from Jarrad's dad on P-day: the missionaries have one day each week that they are allowed to do personal shopping, write emails home and have some recreation)

Final Thoughts

The work is hastening! This week is going to be fantastic! I can already tell! Hope you all have a GREAT week! I love you all! Thanks for the prayers!

'Ofatu!

Elder Larsen

Photos taken at the Australian National War Museum