News from the mission!

G'day everybody!

It was a fast week for me. We are already finished with the first week of the transfer. 

We had a pretty good week. Patricia finally committed to a baptismal date! We set her up for March the 8th. We weren't sure if she would commit or not, but we are witnessing a real change in her. She told us at the beginning that she wouldn't commit to or join anything she was 100% sure about, and she'd been making excuse after excuse. But now she knows what she needs to do because God has told her through the Holy Ghost. We are so excited for her! Her parents are not supportive of her decision (shes about 30 so she can, and wants to, go ahead regardless). Her mum thinks we are "corrupting her soul". We are praying for their hearts to be softened when they see the blessings in Patricia's life.

That was pretty much the highlight of our week. Everything else has been same old. The new guy, Elder Eldridge, is a pretty funny guy. He and Elder Barrientos get along pretty well. They talk on and on about their video games. 

Thank you so much for all the Valentines gifts! They celebrated Valentine's day, but it wasn't a really big thing. At least not as big as in the States. I am stoked to open the Cheetos, but I know as soon as I open them they won't last long. It's been a while since I've seen any Great Value brand foods! I tried that organic spelt stuff the other morning, and with some banana it was actually quite nice. I have been trying to eat a bit healthier. My first transfer here in Burpengary, the transfer of Christmas, I ate way too much junk. I have been doing better recently. Except for Mondays I have sort of made a tradition of getting a Dominoes value pizza on P-day. They used to have cheaper Tuesdays, but now it's cheaper two-days, Monday and Tuesday, and it's difficult to pass up. But other than that I've been getting back into the habit of eating more veggies and fruit and less fast food. I got to weigh myself the other day and I am sitting at about 145 lbs. 

 

We have been hearing a bit about the Olympics as we've been talking to people while tracting, but I don't think winter Olympics is the one they're more excited about. Isn't there an Aussie snowboarder that's pretty good? 

 

You'll have to send me some pics of the boy's church ball! 

I think I've got a few new pictures

First one is a zone photo (minus four sisters who gapped it right after the meeting). That was everyone last transfer. This transfer it didn't change a whole lot. At last transfer meeting President mentioned something pretty new. He told us that we should expect to be in an area for 4 1/2 to 6 months rather than moving around more frequently. The first half of my mission it felt like I was always moving. I think his new idea is a good thing for the mission.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve the Lord in the mission field and hope to make the most of all the time I have! As I read my patriarchal blessing, I know that I am becoming the man that the Lord desires for me to become. I have learned so many valuable lessons and had so much fun! Thank you for supporting me and helping pay for my mission, in addition to all the love you send me in the mail! Bryson, thanks for the comics! They always crack me up! Kenzie, thank you for all the nice notes. I am grateful for a little sister who loves me so very much. I hope you know how much I love and miss you! J and E, smash the 1st ward! You guys are awesome, keep being good! Mum and Dad I love you very much.

I love you and miss you all! 

Elder Thieme

Good experiences in the work.

G'day everybody!

We had an awesome week. Lots of good things happening here in Burpengary! The weather has still been nice as well. Nice cloudy, windy days. It has been a very mild summer for the area, which I am glad for. For this transfer my first trainee, Elder Christensen, went up North to Townsville. Hopefully he's not dying in the heat up there. I can't believe it is February! It feels like we just had fast and testimony meeting! It was funny because we had two investigators last month who came to church for the first time on fast Sunday. Luckily we have an awesome ward and no one stood up to bear testimony about Kolob or exaltation or anything like that. There's always one or two people who, when they stand up, you sort of cringe and watch your investigator closely and hope the Holy Ghost filters out all but the simple testimony.

I can't imagine 20 F right now. I put on a jumper if it gets down to 20 C!

How has the smoker been working? How does it do for ribs? I haven't had good barbeque ribs since I left home. 

Aaronic Priesthood camp. I think the things I remember the most from those is the fun being with all the boys and the close time with the leaders. Also, now that I'm thinking back on it, I loved when we went to that camp site with the little cabins and everything, and then we cleaned up the whole place. I think things like that taught me to love to work and to serve. It may not have been the funnest part of the camp, but it was probably the most fulfilling part. That and the testimony meeting. I guess it's sort of like the way our mission president had his Christmas party thing set up, the same as he does it in his family. They start out by doing some service, helping out someone else, then they do something fun, then finish with something spiritual. I think young men and women preparing for missions need to understand the balance thing. On your mission you do more for people than you ever could any other way, you work harder than you have before in your life, you have some of the most fun times of your life, and you grow spiritually in a way that you couldn't anywhere else. I think something good for potential missionaries would be to learn the balance between hard work, spirituality, and fun.

 I was always pretty useless at trying to plan activities. I hope all goes well and you get lots of boys there. We must have a huge young men's group now. Will you do it at the same place they have had it before? What ideas do they have for activities at the moment?

Actually, my companion is about my height and isn't really the sport type. He's more the video games and animae type. That is probably Elder Henson, and yeah, he's a baller. He plays pretty well. We do basketball Saturday mornings with people in the area. We'll have an investigator come this weekend to play with us at the chapel. I love to play. 

 

We had a bit of a cool experience this Wednesday. It was the evening after P-day and we had a couple lessons planned. First one was with Patricia. We taught her about Moroni's promise. We had been inviting her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon since the start, but I think it finally clicked with her why. When it did click, she was a bit afraid to ask, because an answer in the affirmative would mean a lot of change. We testified and invited her to read, ponder, and pray sincerely. We left that appoinment and went to go see Suzanne, who is still working to quit smoking. Had a good lesson with her. She's improving, and this week we were finally able to include her family in our visit. Before, her 14 year old daughter and 21 year old son would sort of avoid us. We went home after that lesson and we were having a late dinner before we planned for the next day. Then my companion got a call on our phone. Patricia called us that night and told us God had spoken to her, and that she knew the Book of Mormon was true. It was amazing. You always hear stories like that, but when you see it happen, it's just, wow, you don't have words for it. We were pretty excited about that. Now she is a bit scared of the commitment, but we're helping her to see the blessing that are in store for her. She needs as much support from the ward as we can possibly get, and I'm sure a few prayers in her behalf would help as well. 

 

We had another sort of funny experience with a potential investigator named Ross we had tracted into and given a Book of Mormon. When we first met him we hadn't had a lot of time to explain everything about it, so we just told him to read it. We went to follow up with him one morning and accidentally woke him up. He had had a late night with work. He came out of his house looking pretty tired. He also brought his book out, and by the way he was holding it I could tell he was going to give it back. Your heart always sinks when you see that because you know what an amazing gift they're rejecting. He handed the book to my companion and said he didn't like it because of what he read about when the boy Joseph saw the angel Moroni, who told him to get the plates, and Joseph didn't question why. He is a very intelligent person and was raised to question everything. To ask questions with honest intent. I explained to him about how the Book of Mormon was a further answer to Joseph Smith's original question regarding the destiny of his soul and where to find the truth. So he didn't question the command to get the record because it was an answer. I stopped talking and he just looked at me and thought for a minute, then looked at my companion, and all of sudden grabbed the book out of Elder Barrientos' hands, went quickly back inside, shut the screen, said come back in two weeks, and closed the door. Me and my companion and just sort of looked at each other for a second, not sure what just happened, then walked away. I love the Book of Mormon so much. I have seen the blessings it brings into people's lives, families, and homes. 

I love this work! I love you all! Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for all you have done for me. Hope to hear from you soon!

Love Elder Thieme

Animal fun and letters from home

G'day everybody! And happy 16th Birthday Jack! What an old guy! Things are going to start happening to you now! Here in Queensland you're a legal adult at age 17 and you can drink legally at 18. Nuts aye?

It is so great that you boys (and Bryson and Kenzie in the future) have the opportunity to serve in quorum/class leadership positions. There is so much good you can do! I didn't realize the impact I could have on the people I served. Never hesitate to reach out to the people in your quorum/class, especially the ones who don't come much. Do all you can to make everyone feel loved and welcomed. The church has been pushing the "rescue the one," and it is all about making everyone who comes to the church and activities feel that they are wanted and they are loved. The youth have so much power in missionary work. The youth can be the driving force behind the success of member missionary work in a ward. All we've got to do is invite. Missionary work is inviting. The missionary purpose is to INVITE others to come unto Christ. Church b-ball is a great opportunity to invite friends.

The weeks go by so quickly. They seem to start slow and then I realize that it is already Thursday and nearly the weekend. We are now halfway through the transfer with three weeks to go, but it still feels like the transfer just started. 

We had an interesting week. My companion was sick for a couple days. Apparently there has been a virus going around the mission. I had a couple lovely in-grown toenails (sorry, I don't have any pictures to show you). 

It is mango season here. We are just at the end of it I think, but there are lots of mango trees all over the place. They are the best mangoes I have ever tasted. My companion and I pulled some off of a tree when we were tracting and the members keep giving mangoes that they have grown. I also tried a new fruit this week. It was called a jabutocaba or something like that? It was a large round berry with a thick, firm, leathery, purple skin. It tastes similar to a grape, but the inside is very soft. This was at the Rea's home. They have heaps of fruit trees and vegetable plants in their garden. They had banana trees, orange trees (several different varieties), mango trees, a paw paw tree, a dragon fruit plant (it sort of looks like a cactus thing). 

We also did service for a member in our ward. Just cleared some dead palm fronds from his yard. We found a massive spider. It was maybe just smaller than my hand and it had a big white-ish body about the size of a cherry tomato. I tried to get a picture of it but didn't get my camera in time. I also learned something new about the huntsman spiders (big, ugly, and super fast, but not dangerous). They will hop across the ground, sort of like when a deer is bounding. It is the freakiest thing I ever saw.

We had a big cane toad that got into our shower some how. It freaked out Elder Mahu'inga. Apparently he reached down without looking to grab the shampoo and put his hand on the toad. 

One more weird animal story this week! We were tracting and walked up to a house and the screen door was shut but the door was open behind it. Sitting behind the door was a cat. We walked up to the door and knocked softly and said hello into the open door. The cat said hello back. The cat could say hello! It was great. 

One of our investigators who has been progressing went away to visit a friend so haven't seen her in about a week. Our investigator named Suzanne has been doing great. She is still working on quitting smoking and we need to get her to keep coming to church. Last time we taught her she just kept thanking us for sharing these things with her. She is so humble and grateful. It made me realize that I may take the message I have a bit lightly at times, and that it is the best thing anyone could learn. Nothing makes more sense. Nothing brings more hope or causes more joy or freedom or comfort or peace than the truth. And nothing on earth is more true than the things the Lord has said and the things he is saying now through living oracles. 

We get to go to the temple next Wednesday. That will also be our P-day next week, so I won't email on Monday.

I got some great Christmas letters from the ward. That was so cool! The first one I read was Scotty Youngberg. I couldn't believe he was writing a letter. I'm pretty sure I remember when he was a new-born. I loved hearing from so many of the members back home, it was great. 

Grandma and Grandpa Thieme sent me a check for Christmas, bless their hearts. How are they doing? 

Thank you for your prayers, I know they help! I love you all so much! I send my love and gratitude to the ward as well.

Love, Elder Thieme

Hot in Australia!

G'day everybody!

Boy I miss the cold weather! The last few days it has been so hot! Saturday it got up to 46 C (114 degrees F) here in Burpengary! The relief society president and her husband came over and bought us two pedestal fans and a small mobile air con unit. The unit we had was pretty useless and we only had one pedestal fan which we termed "franken-fan," because it was put together from several fans that had gone the way of all the earth. That day we were doing weekly planning so we had to be in the flat for that and most of the houses here in Queensland have walls approximately the thickness of paper. I don't think there's much insulation. So our flat was like a big oven. We went to teach a less-active member that we had an appointment with that day and we got there and she was swimming in the pool with her family and canceled the appointment on us after we had biked there in the boiling heat. That was nice. 

We have had a pretty good week aside from the heat though. We finally had a couple of our investigators come to church. They were two ladies we had tracted into before. One of them we set a baptismal date with her for the beginning of February and then invited her to church that afternoon. She loved it. The other was a lady who has studied religions for a while and was interested in hearing about ours. She has been  tough one, pretty stubborn and set in her own opinions, whether they are scriptural or not. She seemed to like church, but she's going to take a little more time and help from the Spirit before she gets baptized. The Book of Mormon is so key! I think one of the best things to learn before a mission might be to learn how the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion, and how crucial it is to a testimony of the truthfulness of the Church and Gospel. There are so many questions that missionaries get asked, and there is really only one answer to them all: Is the Book of Mormon true? And after careful study, research, thought, and prayer, I know without a doubt that it is divine. I know I can stand on that wonderful book and never fall, and it is because it is the word of Christ. They are things that He said and things He caused His servants to say. The second lady I mentioned hasn't quite understood the role of the Book of Mormon in conversion yet. We're still working on that. 

Elder Barrientos and I have been doing fine. He is a good worker and teacher.  We've got along great. 

I promised I would send pictures this week but unfortunately I left my camera at our flat so they'll have to wait 'till next week.

So the lady we set a baptismal date with sort of came out of nowhere. Her name is Suzanne. We were actually following up with her son, who was a potential investigator. We had an appointment to come around and we took a YSA named Logan with us. This poor guy. He told us every time the missionaries have brought him to a teaching appointment it has fallen through. So we went to see the potential and his mum answers the door and says he's not home. Usually she has been friendly enough to us but hasn't been interested in talking to us. She has a lot of Jehovah Witness material that she's read and it seemed like she just wanted to bash us with that. So she told us her son wasn't home but invited us in for a cold drink, since it was so hot. We sat down and started talking to her about how her holidays went and everything like that. Then she started asking questions about the second coming, and how the things she has read have scared her a little bit. The reason she has ended up getting lots of stuff from the Jehovah Witnesses is because she has been looking for the truth for a while. She had a rough upbringing and a hard life, and has been looking for a way to change her life. She has been looking for forgiveness and turned to Jesus in her search. We taught her about the Atonement and about ordinances and the priesthood. We basically just told her straight out that we had authority from Jesus Christ to baptize and give the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She asked where I got it and I showed her my line of authority. It was so cool, she just lit up. We asked her if she would like to be baptized by someone holding priesthood authority. She asked, "Would you do that?" We said, "eh, yeah, I guess we could do that for you." At this point we still have a bit to teach her and she needs to give up smoking and coffee. If you could include her in your prayers that would be awesome. She is very humble and her family and home desperately need the Gospel. We hope that her sons will also be willing to accept the Gospel eventually. 

I am the assigned driver this transfer. I enjoy getting to drive again.

Last week, one day it was so hot that the mission president sent out a text to the mission counseling us to take a break every sixty minutes and get indoors. That's the first time I've seen that happen. I have been taking cold showers morning and night lately.  

Happy New Years! I can't believe it is already 2014!

I love you all! 

Elder Thieme

Christmas letter - after Skyping...

G'day everybody! That was so amazing to see all of you! I really do have the best family in the world! All the younger kids look and sound so much different! This has been such a fun Christmas. The only thing I was missing was all the family. I think this Christmas is the first time I've felt a little homesick. Of course I've missed the family but I haven't been homesick yet until we started going to a couple of the members family Christmas get-togethers. We went to a cottage meeting at the Pauga's where we sang carols and everyone talked about their family's Christmas traditions. That one made me miss home a bit. It was funny, the Pauga's do almost all the same things as we do. They even do the thing where you pull someone's name out of a hat and you are their secret santa. So I got a bit trunky after that, but I know why I am here and what I am doing. I wouldn't trade this time for anything in the world. It has been the funnest year of my life. And I can't believe it's been a year! It doesn't feel like it's been that long and yet at the same time it feels like I have been gone for ages.

 

The Christmas Eve party was heaps of fun. They split us into groups when we got there and some got to go to a nursing home and sing carols to the oldies and the rest of us helped put together gifts for foster children. That was really cool. After that we had a big lunch. Heaps of food. After that we did our skits. Our was a song that the sisters in our zone wrote. It was like the twelve days of Christmas, missionary style: the six weeks of transfers. The sisters would sing the lines and then the elders acted it out. it was pretty good but it was kind of lame compared to most of the other ones. But we went first so it was all good. After the skits we had a training from President on the doctrines of the Nativity story. That was probably the best part. After his training we all went into the cultural hall and ate again. They had like a thousand pizzas, water bottles, apples, and bags of lollies. It was a whole day thing. We got there at 9:30 and we didn't leave until about 8 pm. 

It was so fun just being there with all the missionaries. Had to say goodbye to a few close friends there. There were some elders going home who I was pretty close to. It was weird to think I might never see them again. I told them to facebook me so I hope to stay in contact after our missions. 

Thank you so much for all the gifts! I was so stoked! Bryson, that is probably the coolest origami I have ever seen. I don't even know how you fold those. Kenzie, did you get the little kangaroo necklace? Did everything make it all the way there in one piece? I hope you all had a great Christmas! I definitely did. It is the best time of the year. I just love how strong the Spirit is at this time. 

Our Christmas day was basically meal after meal after meal. We woke up and did President's "snap gravity" fitness program, showered, and did our personal studies. For companionship studies we just sang Christmas hymns and read Luke chapter 2. We went to the Armstrong's for a big Aussie barbecue breakfast and went straight from there to lunch at the Gulliver's, the Samoan family. So much meat! So much good food. I have developed a love for taro. My companion and I hadn't planned to stay and eat there since we had another lunch just down the road a little later, but they convinced us to stay and eat a little. Then my companion and I left and went to the Hill's for another massive lunch. After one small plate there I could not eat another bite. I was stuffed to the rafters! In between lunch and dinner at the Pauga's, we went to the chapel and played some ball, trying to get hungry again. The Pauga's had heaps of food there as well. Bro Pauga (our ward mission leader) is Samoan as well. I slept well last night! 

This morning we went to the chapel again to play ball with a lot of the members. It was more fun with all the people there. The other three missionaries here aren't really big into the basketball. It's more fun to play with a bigger group and people who can play a little bit. It was pretty cool, I think my shot has gotten better even though I haven't been practicing much. Jackson and Evan better watch out when I come back. I'm going to smash you at 21. If Evan keeps growing like he has been he should be able to dunk it by the time I get home. 

I love you all! Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Elder Thieme