President and Sister Marquis

Email #72
Area: Katherine
Companion: Elder Justin

Excerpts from Mom's email:

Hey Mom!

This week was pretty busy as always! We started off by traveling up to Darwin which was a great journey! We were there only for a couple of days. We met our new mission president and his wife, President and Sister Marquis. They are really great! He is very different from President Parker (now Elder Parker) for sure, but will bring so much to the mission! It was super weird when he kept saying "have fun" and "this meet will be totally casual" because being casual was not a good thing by definition to Pres Parker and same with "fun". We always said we have "joy" instead because having fun can have a different meaning to it. I understand completely what Pres Marquis was meaning, to enjoy the work. Just was different hearing those words, hard to explain why. I know he is called of God! Not just in my interview, but as well just a day or so ago I received greater confirmation that he is truly called by God to lead us at this time, kind of a cool feeling! Cool side note, him and Elder Parker know one another very well! They are long time friends. He told us the story about his call and how his family thought for sure they wouldn't come to Australia of all places because the only mission president that he knew was President Parker, so of course they assumed that would never happen. I thought that was really cool! For a few hours we just got to know one another and I was able to get to know some of the missionaries in Darwin a lot better to! Sister Marquis is really great as well! It was of really strong comfort to know that we are in good hands!

Had a really good day this week on Sunday! It was a normal day for the most part except for a few important differences. I have decided to once again attempt to do a 40 day fast from ten specific natural man tendencies of mine. It is something really cool that I learned about how to increase in light it having a very strong significance to the saviors 40 day fast. To start on Sunday I had a 24 hour fast to obtain heaven's help and the biggest reason Sunday was a good one is because I felt the spirit almost all the way through! Following Sunday however, the adversary followed his pattern of attacking following great spiritual experiences! I was expecting it because just the day before I listened to a talk by Elder Holland on why that happens. I did expect it, but it still was a really hard day! Felt as though Satan was poking at me through the whole day and even my companion and I struggled that night. Accounting with the Lord last night made me determined to make today the best! Been focusing on that all day and will continue to every day!

We have seen a lot of miracles for sure recently and I don't want them to stop. Trying harder every day to improve! Love you mom! Pray for you EVERY DAY! Be safe!


Excerpts from Dad's email:

Hey Dad!

Continued:

For the past 4 or 5 days, my companion has had talk about returning home early because he feels he has not accomplished much and feels super home sick. I've done my best to lift him best I can, but it has been a burden for sure. Something good did come out of it though. After contacting President about it, he called again to check on Elder Justin. Following that, he checked on me to make sure I was okay. I felt the spirit especially as he talked to me, reassuring hat he is also there for me. The spirit touched my heart after that call. Him and I continued to text back and forth and I feel I have developed a good relationship with him the past few days and have grown a lot because of it.

Well we had another movie night in Rockhole and Binjari communities and the kids are loving in. Just yesterday, we brought ice cream with us and no doubt they loved that to haha. It has opened a few doors for us now being about to teach a few of them! Warren's nephew actually is one of them and he is really good! He is on date for baptism and is already progressing well coming to church and everything! His name is Alberto. Today we are going to Rockhole again to see 5 of our investigators there who are there with Alberto and who are all on date as well! Blessings continue to flow out as we work hard and do everything we can! I really hope to see one of them enter the waters of baptism sometime soon here!

John is progressing the most for the adults that we are teaching. Most of them have some addiction or another except for John and the kids. Working through those addictions such as smoking and drugs has been the biggest challenge for sure!

Funny side note, being up in Darwin with the other missionaries was really refreshing! One Elder had heaps of american food (sent a pic) and his companion wouldn't eat it so I smashed through some of it haha! Good stuff! As well they made this crack up card for this missionaries birthday! (in pic as well).

Love you heaps! Have a good week!